Let There Be Darkness
by Griffin kid
Summary: After 'In the Flesh'. The xiaolin dragons are reunited with the monks at last, but what has been going on all this time? And where is Raimundo and Wuya? And what did Omi see in the eyes of the girl that terrorized him so?
1. What Happened?

If you're going to flame this, please tell me why so I can make the story better. Thanks.

Wuya stood in the wasteland of darkness laughing like a maniac. The Reversing Mirror shattered, green flames burst from the cracked, dry ground. The Xiaolin warriors were still a bit stunned by the sudden surge of energy caused by the Serpent's Tail and the Reversing Mirror. While they were still regaining their senses, Wuya waved her hand and vanished.

The Xiaolin warriors stood silently, motionless for several moments. Omi was the first to recover. "Okay," he said. "Now what?"

Dojo, who was just coming around too, completely flipped out. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, NOW WHAT?" He jumped off Clay's shoulder in front of Omi and started shaking him violently by the neck of his robes. "WUYA JUST SENT THE WORLD INTO TEN-THOUSAND YEARS OF DARKNESS! WHAT HAPPENS NOW IS SHE RULES THE WORLD! WE'VE LOST! DO YOU GET IT? WE'VE LOST! WE'RE ALL DOOMED!"

Then Clay and Kimiko snapped out of their shock. Kimiko gave Dojo a good hard slap and wrenched him away from Omi. "Dojo! Get a grip! We've got to keep our heads!"

"What?" Omi shrieked and his hands flew up to his neck.

"It's an expression, Omi. It means we need to stay calm." Kimiko put her hands to her forehead like she had a headache and started pacing. "Okay, let's think. There's gotta be some way Wuya can be defeated. She's gotta have a weakness or something."

Omi and Dojo were watching her intently as if the answer to everything would just burst from her mouth any moment. Clay however, had not said or done anything since he came back to his senses. He was just looking around at all the wreckage.

Kimiko stopped pacing. "Dojo, did Grand Master Dashi ever say what to do if this happened?"

Dojo shook his head. "I don't think he ever expected it to."

"Perhaps Master Fung will know." Omi said. "Or at least have an idea of whether Wuya has a weakness."

"Well, it's the best we can do right now, although I think it might be too late to do anything." Dojo grew to his full size. "Hop on."

Omi and Kimiko climbed on. Clay was still looking around.

"Clay, are you coming?" Kimiko asked.

Clay turned to face them and finally spoke. "Pardon me, am I the only one to notice Raimundo isn't here?"

Then everyone else started looking around. He was right. Raimundo was nowhere in sight.

"Perhaps Wuya took him when she left. Or maybe he used the Golden Tiger Claws to leave," Omi suggested.

"Or maybe he got stuck in the Reversing Mirror." Kimiko muttered angrily.

"Hang on a minute!" Clay ran over to the shards of the Reversing Mirror.

"I was kidding, Clay!" Kimiko yelled.

"I know, but look!" He picked up two of the shards and held them up for the others to see. When they looked more closely at them they saw they weren't shards. One was the Serpent's Tail. The other was the Golden Tiger Claws.

Omi gasped. "Raimundo . . ." He jumped off Dojo and ran over to Clay. Kimiko followed. Dojo hesitated, then shrunk and went after them. Clay handed Omi the Shen-Gong-Wu. Omi looked them both over carefully.

"Yes, these are the Shen-Gong-Wu Raimundo had when he went through the Reversing Mirror."

"Maybe he didn't go through." Clay thought aloud. "I mean if he did, then wouldn't he be here?"

"Oh no!" Omi dropped to the ground, picked up a shard of the Reversing Mirror, shook it, and started shouting into it. "Raimundo! Raimundo, are you there? Can you hear me?"

"Omi, we don't know he's in there, it's just a possib-"

"Why do you guys even care what happened to him?" Kimiko spoke sharply. "He means about as much to us as Jack Spicer."

Her question made Clay think. Why did he still care? Raimundo betrayed them. He was just another enemy now. Though probably less annoying and smarter than Jack Spicer. But still . . . . he was worried about him. Why?

Omi was shocked. He knew Kimiko was upset with Raimundo for betraying them. They all were. But he felt that Raimundo was still their friend and wasn't ready to give up on him yet. The old Raimundo still had to be in there somewhere with a good reason for all this. He thought that Kimiko and Clay felt the same. He was sorely disappointed.

Kimiko was furious. How could they act this concerned after what Raimundo did to them? He obviously didn't care about them and their friendship, so why should they? It was good he was gone. Now he wouldn't do any more damage. Although as hard as she told this to herself, it didn't ease the tight pain in her chest.

Clay spoke up. "It's important we know where he is so we know if he's helping Wuya out or if he's gone." This made Omi think Clay felt the same way about Raimundo as Kimiko, which made him sadder. Clay really just said this because he didn't know what else to say and wanted to get on with the search.

"Dojo, what should have happened to Raimundo when he went through?"

"Well, as soon as the Serpent's Tail touched the Reversing Mirror, the explosion should have happened, which it did, and Raimundo should have been knocked back ten feet, which he wasn't."

"So what went wrong?" Kimiko asked.

Dojo looked thoughtfully from the broken shards of the Reversing Mirror to the Serpent's Tail. Then his eyes strayed to the Golden Tiger Claws, and after a second his eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

"Tiger Claws," He breathed. "He had the Claws on! Before he used the Serpent's Tail he used the Golden Tiger Claws, remember? It's possible that they were still active while he brought Wuya back. And they were touching the Serpent's Tail!"

Clay blinked. "What'cha getten' at, Dojo?"

"The Serpent's Tail and Reversing Mirror make a person solid. That affected Wuya because they both touched her. But what happens when you touch the Golden Tiger Claws, the Serpent's Tail, AND the Reversing Mirror while active?"

Omi went pale. "Are you saying that all three Shen-Gong-Wu may have affected Raimundo?"

Dojo nodded vigorously.

"So what _does_ happen when you combine all three of those Shen-Gong-Wu?" Kimiko asked.

Dojo scratched his head. "I have absolutely no idea."


	2. Let's Go

"Well, what might happen?" Clay wondered aloud.

"What is the opposite of going wherever you want?" Omi asked.

"Well don't forget the Serpent's Tail." Dojo added.

"Look, can we just forget about Raimundo and focus on Wuya?" Talking about Raimundo was making Kimiko shake, but she wasn't sure if it was from keeping anger in or tears. Or both.

After hesitating a moment, Omi nodded. As concerned as he was for Raimundo right now, Wuya was a great threat and it was his duty to stop her. Anyway, Raimundo could probably wait.

Clay got up. He figured Raimundo was as good as dead. There was no possible way any of them could find out where he went. For all they knew, he had vanished off the face of the earth. If only he knew . . . .

Dojo grew to his full size. "All aboard!"

"Wait!" Omi glanced at the shards of the Reversing Mirror. "It may be wise to take these. Maybe it can be fixed."

"I doubt it," Kimiko grumbled, but Clay knelt down, took off one of his gloves, and swept the shards into it. Then they all boarded Dojo and took off for the temple. The scenery never changed. The wasteland of darkness had covered the planet. When they arrived at the temple, Master Fung and the monks were waiting for them in the yard of dead grass. Master Fung did not need to ask what happened or why they where back.

"Dojo, you know where to go," he said briskly. Dojo looked very nervous, but he nodded.

"Master Fung, how do we defeat Wuya?" Omi asked.

"You and the others will remain here. This has gone too far for you to handle."

"But we're Xiaolin apprentices!" Kimiko protested.

"Even so, you are too young and inexperienced to fight Wuya. Please do as you are told."

"No!" Omi cried. "Please Master Fung, you will have a better chance if-"

But Clay clapped a hand over Omi's mouth. "We understand, Master Fung, sir. We'll stay."

Omi's eyes grew bigger than dinner plates. Kimiko's jaw dropped open. Master Fung nodded. "Thank you, Clay." He and the other monks got on Dojo and flew off.

Once they were out of sight, Kimiko started yelling at Clay. "WE UNDERSTAND? ARE YOU CRAZY? WE'RE JUST GOING TO STAND HERE AND WAIT FOR WUYA TO DESTROY EVERYTHING? IF YOU THINK I'M JUST-"

"Do you have any idea who you sound like?" Clay interrupted. "Raimundo shared your exact opinion the night of Mala Mala Jong. And when he ran off to fight, all he accomplished was revealing our location."

Kimiko was silent for a moment, then opened her mouth to say something else, but Clay spoke before she could say it. "Don't worry, I don't have any intention of just waiting here for the end of the world. We can try to come up with a sure way to take care of Wuya if Master Fung and the monks can't beat her."

Omi pushed Clay's hand away from his now smiling mouth. "Now you are speaking!"

"Talking?" Kimiko offered.

"That too!"

Kimiko smiled and nodded at Clay. "That sounds good to me too."

They went into the temple. Clay and Kimiko got out the ancient scroll of Shen-Gong-Wu and leafed through it to see if it had anything. Omi sat down on the floor and meditated. Five minutes later, Omi suddenly leaped to his feet yelling out "Ah ha!", scaring the crap out of Clay and Kimiko, who both jumped and dropped the scroll. Omi's face was bright with excitement. "The Heart of Jong! It brings inactive objects to life! What if we killed Wuya using it and the . . ." Then he remembered why Clay was only wearing one glove and his face fell. ". . .Reversing . . . Mirror."

He sighed. Kimiko patted his back. "It would have been a great idea if the Reversing Mirror wasn't broken."

Clay held the glove level to his eyes for a moment, then dumped the contents onto the table. "Maybe we can fix it."

Kimiko picked the scroll back up. "Maybe we can use a Shen-Gong-Wu to do it." While Kimiko looked, Omi and Clay worked on fitting the shards together. When they got a little more than half of the Reversing Mirror fragments in place, Kimiko found something.

"Here!" She spread the scroll on the table by the remains of the Reversing Mirror and pointed at the picture. "The Phoenix's Tear! Fixes broken bone, skin, glass, ceramics, and pretty much anything." In the picture, a figure was pointing a gem at its elbow, which was bent the wrong way. The gem glowed and shot out a beam of light at the elbow. In a moment the elbow went back to normal and the glowing stopped. The figure flexed the elbow's movement.

"Great! Now we've just gotta find it!" Clay exclaimed.

"But this is the Reversing Mirror." Omi pointed out. "What if the Phoenix's Tear only makes things worse?"

"The Reversing Mirror isn't active, remember?"

Omi started talking very fast. "Yes, but it was recently used so it still could be active, like when the Tiger Claws were used, and then the Serpent's Tail and the Reversing Mirror and who knows what happened to Raimundo? So if the Reversing Mirror is still active and we use the Phoenix's Tear, what if we only accomplish breaking what is left of the Reversing Mirror and the Phoenix's Tear . . . "

He paused to rub his temples. "Ohhhh, combining Shen-Gong-Wu has become most complicated since Raimundo vanished."

"Don't worry about it, Omi" Kimiko said. "Without Dojo, we could never find the Phoenix's Tear anyway. And even if we had him, what are the chances of it revealing itself right now?"

Then she frowned. "Or maybe we should worry about it. Wuya's going to rule the world pretty soon after all. Since we don't have anything else to do to help, why don't we look for it ourselves? And maybe while we're looking, a better idea will come to us."

Clay shrugged. "Why not?"

Omi nodded. "I am up with that!"

"It's down with that, Omi." Kimiko corrected.

Kimiko brought out one of her backpacks and a flat plastic container just a little bigger than the Reversing Mirror. They carefully transferred the sort-of fixed part of the Reversing Mirror into it, then fitted in the rest of the shards. It was still useless, but at least now it looked a bit like it did before. After packing the container into the backpack along with some other Shen-Gong-Wu, they grabbed some Shen-Gong-Wu that was used to fly, and went outside.

"Longi Kite!" Clay yelled.

"Jet Bootsu!" Kimiko shouted.

Clay picked up Omi, and they were off.


	3. Where Are They?

Kimiko used the Star of Hanabi to light their way. As they were flying, they saw that other than the darkness and lack of water and plants, everything was normal. Kimiko checked her PDA to see if there were any news reports on this. People were convinced that this was only some bizarre major eclipse and everything would go back to normal soon. No one mentioned a witch in any of the reports, either meaning that the news of Wuya hadn't been released to the public, or that nobody had seen her yet.

Clay frowned. "No sign of Wuya. That can't be good."

"Who knows what she may be doing or when she may strike." Omi shivered. Then he brightened. "Or perhaps Master Fung has already defeated her."

Kimiko made no comment. She was too busy fiddling around with her PDA. After a few minutes she said out of the blue, "She's somewhere in the Grand Canyon."

Clay almost dropped Omi. "How do you know that?"

Kimiko waved the PDA at him. "I put a tracking device on Dojo. What do you think? Should we keep looking for the Phoenix's Tear, or go see what Wuya's up to?"

"Master Fung told us not to interfere." Omi protested.

Clay nodded. "And remember what happened with Raimundo when he-"

"Raimundo left and risked the entire Shen-Gong-Wu vault." Kimiko interrupted. "What have we got to lose now?"

Clay didn't answer. After thinking and seeing she was right, he sighed. "All right, fine by me." And they changed direction to the Grand Canyon.

"Now wait a minute!" Omi shouted. "Doesn't anyone want to know what _I_ think?"

Kimiko shrugged. "Not really, since we all know you're itching to kick Wuya's butt."

"If that means I am looking forward to fighting and defeating Wuya, then yes, I am itching. But still I think this is a bad idea."

As soon as the Grand Canyon came into view, they flew in low so they wouldn't be seen and followed Kimiko's the signal from the tracking device.

"We're almost there!" Kimiko whispered excitedly. "They're just around the corner!" But when they peeked around it, there was nothing but a clearing with a few rocks.

"The tracking device must've fallen off here." Clay grumbled.

"It couldn't have. I made sure it wouldn't fall off no matter what." Kimiko looked down at her PDA and frowned. "That's weird. Now the signal's just disappeared completely."

"Perhaps it broke?" Omi suggested.

"Maybe, but that's highly unlikely. Let's look around and see if there's anything here."

Kimiko threw the Star of Hanabi up above the clearing so they could all see. The clearing almost looked like it was in daytime. They split up and searched for anything that might be helpful. After eight minutes, Kimiko called the guys over to her. She had found one of Dojo's scales.

"So they _were _here," Clay murmured.

Omi's eyes scanned the area where Kimiko found the scale. There didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. No fires, burns, broken rocks, dead bodies, or blood. As Omi was looking around, a sudden gleam from one of the cliffs caught Clay's eye. Then Omi turned his head and it was gone.

"Omi, hold on,"

"What?"

"Just hold still for a minute."

Clay walked over to Omi, turned Omi's head back in the position it was in before, and was blinded with light. He fell back in surprise and pain.

"Clay! Are you all right?"

"Just stay like that, Omi!"

Clay rubbed his eyes, opened them, and blinked a few times. It wasn't so bright anymore, but now he saw little colored spots and his eyes were a little sore. He rubbed them and blinked again and everything was back to normal.

Kimiko knelt beside him. "You okay, Clay?"

"Yeah,"

"May I move my head now?" Clay looked up and saw with relief that Omi hadn't moved. Omi's head was bright with light from the Star of Hanabi. The angle it was at was reflecting a beam of light up at a spot on the cliff. Something was there.

He pointed up at the gleam. "Look up there!"

Kimiko and Omi looked. Unfortunately, when Omi moved the gleam disappeared.

Clay sighed. "Keep lookin' Kimiko."

He got up and moved Omi's head back into position, this time keeping his eyes closed and taking a few steps back before opening them. He heard Kimiko try to stifle a laugh.

"Huh," she said when she got it down. "I'll go check it out. Jet Bootsu!"

She flew up to the gleam, avoiding looking directly at it and the beam reflecting off Omi's head.

"What is going on?" Omi asked. He looked really confused.

"Just hang on, pardner. I think we found something."

Once Kimiko reached the where spot where the gleam was, she yelled for Omi to turn his head so she could see what it was. He looked up at her to see what they found now that he was allowed to move. Clay and Omi couldn't see her face or hear what she was saying. They could see she was slowly reaching out to it though. Suddenly she vanished.

Omi gasped. "Oh no! First Raimundo, now Kimiko! What should we do?"

Clay blinked. He had just looked directly at light reflecting from Omi's head which was the same as looking directly at the sun for awhile, so his eyes were liable to play tricks. But if Omi saw the same thing he did, then maybe he wasn't seeing things.

"Maybe we should go on up to see what happened." Clay suggested.

"I strongly advise against that. The same thing that happened to Kimiko may happen to us. Then who will fight against Wuya?" Omi said.

"Do you have a better idea?"

Omi thought for a moment, then sighed, hung his head, and answered "Unfortunately, no,"

Clay picked Omi up.

"Longi Kite!" he yelled.

And they flew up to the unknown.


	4. Weird

This chapter's pretty short. We promise the next one will be longer. Just curious, would you like it better if the chapters were named or is numbered okay?

It was a little difficult finding the unidentified object again because they didn't have the beam of light to guide them to it this time. But finally they found a small outlet in the cliff with a tiny white gem inside it.

"How ever did you see something so small and concealed from below?" Omi asked.

Clay almost started to explain, but then decided it would be better not to. Instead he peered at the gem. "What do you reckon it is? The Phoenix's Tear?"

"I do not think so. The Phoenix's Tear was teardrop shaped and this . . . I am not sure what shape that is in."

They would have taken it out of the hole to get a better look at it, but they both knew it would have been a stupid thing to do after seeing Kimiko vanish when she reached for it. Omi moved his face closer to the gem to examine it more closely, but he must have gotten too close because suddenly Clay and Omi both felt that they were being pulled into a cosmic whirlpool of mud. Then everything went black.

Cool dew fell onto Omi's face, bringing him to consciousness. He awoke in a lush redwood forest. Clay was lying beside him. They were both covered head to toe in mud. Suddenly a blast of freezing water hit them from above. Clay woke up, sputtering. Omi wiped the water from his eyes and looked up to see Kimiko standing above them holding an overturned empty wooden bucket. He was surprised at how different she looked. Her hair was black again, her skin was sunburned, her jacket and helmet were gone, she was pretty dirty, she was wearing sandals, and she had a couple scars on her right cheek. She seemed to be very happy to see them.

"What took you so long?" she exclaimed. "I thought you two had given up on me and went to fight Wuya yourselves! You aren't going to believe-"

"What'cha talkin' 'bout Kimiko?" Clay was still wiping the mud and water out of his face. "We followed ya 'bout a minute after you-"

He stopped when he saw Kimiko. "What happened to you?"

"Hey, I didn't think I would need to bring my shower stuff and make-up."

"Where are your clothes?"

"It's kind of a long story."

"How did you get those scars?" Omi asked, pointing at them. "And why are you sunburned? It's very shady and cool here."

"It's kind of a long story about those too."

"How can there be a long story?" Clay practically yelled. "You were only gone for a minute!"

Kimiko raised an eyebrow. "Here it's been a day an a half."


	5. Kimiko's Story

Clay just sat in stunned silence with a bewildered look on his face.

"Wha- how- whe- huh!" Omi's mind was flooded with so many questions, he didn't know where to begin. He finally closed his mouth, tried to relax, and decided to just throw some off the top of his brain.

'_It's off the top of you're head, Omi_.'

Omi blinked. Where did that come from? As if he didn't have enough on his mind already! To make things simpler, he guessed he just subconsciously remembered that word and had talked to himself without realizing it. Anyway, getting back to their current situation.

"Where's here?"

Kimiko shrugged. "I'm not completely sure." She cocked her head to the side. "You're not kidding about me only disappearing a minute ago, are you? That's really weird."

Clay spoke. "If a day and a half's passed here, then we must've been out for a long while."

"No. I just passed by here a minute ago and neither of you were here. Hmm, maybe it'll make more sense if I tell you everything that happened. You aren't going to believe this! I fou-never mind."

She suddenly looked depressed.

"What?"

"Why don't we get you both cleaned up first and then we can figure this out. There's a great place to wash up nearby."

Although Kimiko had washed some of the mud off their faces with the water from the bucket, they were still coated in mud. Kimiko reluctantly helped them up and motioned for them to follow her.

On the way, they passed large patches of hacked or dead ferns and grass. Clay started to ask Kimiko about this. "Why-"

"It's in the story." Kimiko interrupted.

"Of course it is." Clay muttered. "Kimiko, could you at least tell us how you could get sunburned? Like Omi said, it's shady here."

Kimiko snorted. "You should've seen me when I first got here. I was completely burned. And believe me, it could've been worse. When I reached for that crystal, I got pulled into this huge whirlpool of flames."

Omi and Clay stopped in their tracks. "It was a whirlpool of mud when we got pulled in."

Kimiko looked blankly at them for a moment. Then she smacked her forehead. "That's it! I have the element of fire, so it was fire for me, and since you both went in at the same time, it mixed your elements!"

Soon they came to a waterfall running into a wide shallow pool.

"Pretty cool, huh? Outdoor shower and bath. A little cold, but you get used to it in a while."

Omi jumped in, wincing at the temperature of the water. Then he took a deep breath, dived underwater, and started swimming free-style. With each stroke, more mud wore away from him, fading into the water. The now dirty water flowed down a creek and was replaced with clean water from the waterfall. When Omi was finally clean, he climbed out of the pool only to discover that there was nothing to dry off with.

"Sorry Omi." Kimiko shrugged. "No one here seems to mind the cold very much and with me being burned, I've been enjoying how cool it is."

Omi had to shake himself off like a dog and run around to get warm. Clay waded out into the pool and stood in the waterfall until he was clean, then waded back out and used the same technique Omi used to get warm.

When he was done, Clay turned to Kimiko. "Well, now can you tell us what happened?"

"Sure. Better make yourselves comfortable. Like I said before, it's kind of a long story."

Clay and Omi sat down on two moss covered rocks by the pool. Kimiko stepped into the pool and lay down in it, resting her head on the edge. "So, where should I start?"

"From when you first got here, wherever here is."

"Okay. I was at the same spot you guys were. After I took in what happened, I tried to get up, but my skin hurt too much for me to move. After being still for that long, I eventually fell asleep."

She didn't tell them that she had actually worn herself out from crying. She had expected for Omi and Clay to come after her, and when they didn't, she figured they had abandoned her like Raimundo had. It was one of the worst things in the world to think that the people you cared about the most didn't give a damn about you. Kimiko already got her heart broken over Raimundo, and she hardly had any time to recover from it. When Clay and Omi didn't come for her, she was seriously considering suicide. When she first saw them here, she had to restrain herself from squeezing them until she broke their ribs. Out of anger or happiness, she wasn't sure. But she let only her happiness show on her face and pushed her anger down for later. The anger evaporated when she discovered they really did come in right after her.

"I also woke up the same way you two did, with cold water. Only I was being lowered into this pool."

"By who?" Clay asked.

"Two wood nymphs."

"There are wood nymphs here?" Omi asked.

"Yeah. There's a colony of them over south some ways."

"Shouldn't all the plants here be really healthy then?" Clay asked.

Kimiko sighed. "They were, but there's a pack of goblins in the woods that's killing a lot of them. The wood nymphs are trying to restore everything back to the way it was, but the goblins destroy faster than the wood nymphs can heal."

"What kind of goblins?" Omi asked.

"These ones are creatures that look like midgets, only they have goat horns, sharp teeth and claws, big noses, and pointed ears. Anyway, the wood nymphs took me in to their colony and helped me with my burn. I didn't have anywhere else to go, so I've been trying to help them with their problem with the goblins."

"Why don't the wood nymphs ask the goblins to leave the woods if they are such a dilemma?" Omi asked.

"They've already tried that. And negotiating with them. But the goblins won't leave. Actually the goblin got enough nerve to ambush the wood nymphs in their own homes." Kimiko's eyes abruptly widened. "Reminding me why I went to get clean water in the first place.

Kimiko got up, waded out to the waterfall, and held her pail underneath it, waiting for it to fill up.

"A lot of the wood nymphs were killed or injured in the ambush. It wasn't fair at all. The goblins attacked on wood nymph territory, the wood nymphs didn't have any weapons, and they didn't even know how to fight." Kimiko rolled her eyes. "And even if they did, I'm sure they wouldn't no matter what. Well, I'd better go back."

The pail was filled to the brim. Kimiko started back to the colony. Clay and Omi followed. "I'm guessing that the goblins gave you those scars." Clay said.

"Yeah. That's all they managed to do to me." A satisfied smirk grew on Kimiko's face. "Those goblins are going to thing twice before they lay they filthy claws on me again."

Clay smiled. He was sure she pounded a lesson into the goblins' flesh that they'd never forget. It took a lot to get Kimiko down.

Suddenly Kimiko stopped smirking. "Look, guys, there's something important that happened after the attack that I think you should know. See, I made the goblins cluster so a wood nymph named Agatha could put some sort dust on them that put them to sleep. But when we were going to dump them at the edge of the woods or something, this wolf leaped out of nowhere and took a swipe at the wood nymph closest to the pile of goblins. Everyone started screaming and dragging the injured inside as quickly as possible. Then a huge whirlwind appeared, gathered up all the goblins and the wolf, and just whisked them away."

"Why is this event important? It sounds like the whirlwind saved you all from harm." Omi said.

"Not exactly. The whirlwind and wolf were there to save the goblins, not the wood nymphs."

"What do you mean?"

Kimiko sadly shook her head. "Before a wood nymph pulled me inside, I caught a glimpse of three people crouching in some bushes nearby. One of them was Raimundo."


	6. Problems

"Come again?" Clay was certain he heard Kimiko wrong. Unfortunately, he didn't.

"Raimundo. He's here."

"Is he alright?" Omi asked quickly.

To Kimiko's annoyance, Omi looked worried and anxious about the answer to this question. When was this kid going to get it through his skull? Raimundo was an enemy. He betrayed them. Then Kimiko felt a twang of sympathy for Omi, looking at his face. Omi was young and innocent. He had a lot of faith in his friends and high, unpromising hopes for Raimundo. If only Rai knew how much pain he was causing the poor kid! If only he knew how much pain he was causing all of them!

Kimiko decided to humor Omi. "He looked just fine."

Omi relaxed and smiled.

"Did you see any sign of the shen-gong-wu affecting him?" Omi asked.

"Nope, but it was only a glimpse so it doesn't mean they didn't."

"But how did he get here?" Clay asked.

"On that subject, I know about as much you do."

"Who were the people he was with?"

"Hey I told you, I only caught a glimpse and most of it was focused on Raimundo. But I saw that they all had hoods. I think they were followers."

"Of Wuya?" Omi looked alarmed.

"I don't think so. I mean Wuya abandoned him, didn't she? And from what I've heard, it sounds like he's started being his own boss."

"Huh?" Clay looked at her. "Raimundo's well known around here?"

"Oh yeah. It didn't make any sense to me at first either. But remember, you said I was gone for a minute and I've been here for a day and a half. Time must go really slowly here. Rai's been away from our world, what, a few hours? If a minute's a day and a half, a few hours . . . well, that's gotta be a real long time. Long enough for him to get a reputation here. This was the first time the wood nymphs have seen any sign of him here, but they've heard stories from other places about him. They've heard he kills anything that breathes and spares only those who join his forces. Everyone thinks that he's a sorcerer or something."

"Just because he can control wind?"

Kimiko smirked. "That's it."

"But he has not fully come to grasps with his abilities yet!" Omi protested. "And he is not even a Xiaolin apprentice!"

"It doesn't matter about those things here. No one's seen anything like him before. Besides, if he's been here as long as we think he has, you can bet he's been practicing."

"Wait, kills anything that breathes? I find that hard to believe. Raimundo is not that dark."

"Remember, these are just rumors. They're not likely to be true. I wouldn't be surprised if Raimundo himself is spreading them around to sound tougher." Although she didn't really believe what she was saying. Who knew how much Raimundo had changed. He could be as evil as Wuya for all they knew. But she didn't tell Omi this. It would hurt him to much. "Hey, guess what? He's made a new name for himself. 'Silvertongue.'"

"Why Silvertongue?" Omi asked.

"I don't know. I guess he just thought it sounded cool."

Suddenly they heard a twig snap near them. Omi and Clay quickly got into their battle positions. Kimiko said "Come on out, Agatha. They're just some friends of mine."

From behind a redwood emerged what was probably the most beautiful woman either Clay or Omi had ever seen. But neither of them really got a good look to be sure. At first sight of her, Clay blushed, looked away, and quickly covered Omi's bulging eyes because all she was wearing was a white lily in her floor length, tangled, dirty-blonde hair. She giggled softly and her tan, delicate hand moved up to cover her full, pink mouth. Her dark brown eyes moved from them to Kimiko. "You finally found them. That's wonderful."

Kimiko smiled at her. "Thanks. You'll have to forgive them. Guys can be weird."

"Yes. You told us. I came down to see if you were alright."

"Everything's great."

Agatha's eyes strayed to the bucket of water.

"Oh! I'm sorry! I got sidetracked." Kimiko held out the pail. "Here. You can move faster than I can in this forest."

Agatha squatted down, picked up an empty bucket from behind the tree, then straitened and walked over to Kimiko. "Would you get some more water? We're going to need a lot."

"Of course. I promise it won't take so long this time." Kimiko said as they swapped buckets.

Agatha turned and sprinted off into the forest. Omi heard her leave and pushed Clay's hand away. They were silent for a moment. "Soooo . . . . that was a wood nymph?" Clay managed to ask.

Kimiko nodded. "And if you're going to act like that around all of them, you might want to stay here."

"My goodness." Omi said. "Wood nymph's bodies are quite strange looking. Such bizarre creatures!"

Kimiko and Clay exchanged glances. Omi didn't know exactly how girls were different from boys and assumed that only wood nymphs were built like that. Kimiko and Clay knew Omi had to learn about the birds and bees soon, but they weren't about to be the ones to tell him.

"Look, why don't you guys look around for any sign of Raimundo while I help the wood nymphs take care of their injuries. If you find anything it might help us learn more about him or point us in his direction. Here." Kimiko gave Omi the Star of Hanabi. "Use this to let me know where you are if you find anything."

She started back to the pool. Then Omi remembered something important. "Kimiko!" He called after her. "Where are the Jet Bootsu and Reversing Mirror?"

Kimiko stopped dead. She slowly looked back at them with a sheepish look. "Uhhhh- see, about that. I, uh, I couldn't really get around in the Jet Bootsu very well in this forest and . . . well, the wood nymphs offered to hold on to them and gave me these to wear." She motioned to the sandals she was wearing. "Well, I didn't want the Reversing Mirror to get worse then it already is so . . . . well, I gave them that too. And . . . well, uh during the ambush the goblins didn't just fight. They pillaged. We uh, found out after the whirlwind came and took 'em that a lot of stuff was taken, including the . . . ."

In other words, they were gone. Kimiko started running back to the pool. Omi and Clay were irate. The plan wouldn't work without the Reversing Mirror! Then Omi remembered something else and shrugged. "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter anyway since we forgot to bring the Heart of Jong."

Neither of them thought things could get worse when something suddenly struck Clay. "Come to think of it, how are we all gonna get back home?"

Surprised, Omi turned and blinked at Clay. They stared at each other for a moment, then without warning Omi started hollering and running in circles around Clay.


	7. Unfortunate Discovery

Clay watched Omi circle him until he was dizzy. Then he picked him up and covered his mouth, effectively silencing him. "Easy there, little buddy. We don't have time to worry about that now. We've got work to do."

They split up to look for any sign of Raimundo. While Omi was walking, he couldn't help but worry about everything that was wrong. Who knew what damage Wuya was doing to the world while they were here and they didn't have a clue on how to beat her now. And how were they going to get home? Well, they would cross that road when they came to it.

_Cross that bridge when you come to it_

Ah. That made more sense. Where did he remember it from? Oh well.

Omi had been walking for about ten minutes when the dirt, leaves, and branches underneath him gave way. "AAAAAAAH! A TRAP!" But after he picked himself up and brushed off the dirt and leaves, he found it was actually some sort of underground tunnel.

Using the Star of Hanabi to guide him, he went to see where it led. After five minutes, he heard faraway voices ahead and quickly put out the Star of Hanabi. When he did, he saw there was also daylight ahead. As Omi silently edged closer, the walls, floor, and ceiling seemed to close in on him until he had to crawl. The voices grew louder. Omi finally came to the end of the tunnel, which led into the bottom of a deep trench. The end was partly covered by the branches and leaves of a young tree. It helped so he could see out and, if he was still and quiet, no one outside would see him. Omi saw seven angry looking goblins. The one at the very center was talking. Omi found it difficult to make out the words because it was speaking so thickly. He saw by how differently the goblin was dressed from the others that it was the leader. He shifted his head to the left to see who the goblin was talking to. Omi struggled to keep himself from gasping.

Slouching in a bored manner with his arms folded across his stomach, was Raimundo. He was looking down at the goblin in a will-you-just-shut-up way, but stayed quiet and listened. Then a sudden movement caught Omi's eye. He noticed that near Raimundo, three kids exactly Rai's height and age were leaning against the other side of the trench. They were all wearing hoods.

But Kimiko said there were only two others. Perhaps one was hiding somewhere else during that event.

Omi couldn't see their faces very well due to their hoods, but he did his best to take in the other details of their appearance. They were each wearing jeans and sneakers, but their shirts were different. The one on the left had on a dark blue hooded jacket and a pair of black sunglasses. The sunglasses confused Omi because it wasn't very bright. The one in the middle had on a brown hooded sweatshirt. This one looked a lot like Raimundo. Same tan skin and mischievous smile. The one on the right had on a hoodie like Raimundo's, only black. The color made the wearer's ashen skin stand out.

Finally the goblin leader stopped talking and Raimundo spoke. "I understand you're upset. Look, the nymphs are your problem. The girl isn't. Here's the deal. She'll be gone if she believes you're gone. Let me just suggest something here. I know you're not too thrilled about 'hiding like rats', but suppose you do it just for a few days. The girl has no reason to stay, she leaves to kick butt somewhere else. Then you can drive out the nymphs."

The goblin began talking again and when it finished, Raimundo replied "No, we can't attack the colony ourselves. We've received some disturbing news that makes things more complicated for us and things need to be handled smoothly right now or this could blow out of proportion."

Omi was dumbfounded. This didn't sound like Raimundo. He was usually ready to jump right into things. That was one of the reasons he didn't get promoted. Kimiko was right. He must have been here awhile to have matured.

"But we can get the girl out of there in a hurry." Raimundo continued. "I've tangled with this girl before. Where trouble goes, she follows. All we need to do is stir some trouble up somewhere away from here. She checks the surface, everything's okay, she leaves. Then you can resurface and fight. It should only take three days tops."

Omi noticed how the follower in the middle's smile broadened when Raimundo said the 'stir some trouble up' part. The goblin said something in a suspicious way. Raimundo grinned darkly. "She won't. We'll make sure of that."

Raimundo spat on his hand and held it out to the goblin. The goblin eyed it warily, then spat on its hand, grasped Raimundo's, and gave it a quick shake. Then all the goblins bowed, turned, and shuffled away. Raimundo wiped his hand off on his pants once they left. There was a few minutes of silence before the follower at the left spoke. "So, we're hitting three birds with one stone?" Omi could tell that the voice belonged to a girl.

"That's how it appears." Raimundo leaned on the opposite wall of the followers, out of Omi's view. "So, what should our third bird be?"

"Let's go to the elves." The middle follower said eagerly. This one was a boy. "They could definitely use some hell."

"No." Raimundo answered. "They're down past the summit. That'll be too far."

The follower on the right started to say something, but Raimundo cut him or her off. "Not the phoenix town. That's too close. The monks could go there, hear about the goblins' attack on the nymphs, and come back."

Omi's eyes widened. He knew they were here? Of course, Rai knew Kimiko was here so he probably figured that he and Clay came with her.

"How about the Dwellers?" The girl asked.

The other followers nodded in approval and looked expectantly at Raimundo for his judgment. After a moment, Raimundo got off the wall and stood in the center. "That's perfect. Great idea." He rubbed his hands together. "Let's get going."

The followers stood up straight. Raimundo clapped his hands. Suddenly a huge wind came up, sweeping the group into the air. The young tree was blown aside and Omi was sucked out of the tunnel and pushed up into plain sight.


	8. Now What?

Clay started tapping his foot impatiently. He was sitting on one of the rocks by the pool, waiting for Kimiko and Omi. They didn't really agree to meeting here, but he couldn't think of any other way to find them. Also he needed something to keep from wondering what they were going to do when they found Raimundo.

Finally, Kimiko came back to the pool. "Where have you been?" Kimiko said when she saw Clay. "Geez, I've been looking all over for you. Why didn't you signal me with the Star of Hanabi?"

"Omi has it, remember?" Clay replied.

Kimiko looked around. "Well, where's Omi?"

"We split up."

"What?" Kimiko slapped her forehead. "How were you going to signal us if you found something?"

Clay shrugged. "I don't know, but like Omi said, a net cast wide catches more fish."

"Yeah well when a broken bracelet falls, it's not easy finding the lost beads."

They stared at each other for a minute in awkward silence. Kimiko could see perfectly well that Clay was trying hard not to laugh. "Hey, it was my first one, give me a break."

"Well- it wasn't bad, just-" Clay shook his head. "And Raimundo says I use weird metaphors."

The mention of Raimundo brought another awkward silence, this time filled with sadness instead of repressed mirth. Kimiko changed the subject as soon as she got her mind back on the situation. "I'm done helping the wood nymphs. They're doing pretty well, but I thought I'd stick around in case those goblins get up the nerve to ambush them again."

"Like you have a choice." Clay muttered.

"What?"

"Kimiko, do you even have the slightest clue how we're going to get outta here?"

"Yeah."

"What?" Clay jumped to his feet. "How?"

"I told the nymphs how I got here and they told me that the crystal in the cliff was a Merkabah. It's supposed to be a substance that transports beings from one dimension to another. In this particular case, us from our world to this one. The nymphs said that their ancestors used it to get here when humans came."

"When were you going to tell this to Omi and me?"

Kimiko shrugged. "I dunno. When the issue came up, I guess."

"Okay, so where do we find the Merkabah?"

"That's the problem. I don't know. I checked the whole area where we appeared over and over, but there's nothing."

"Well, at least we have an idea of how we're gonna get home now."

Suddenly a wind came up. It wasn't that big a deal, except this wind felt familiar somehow. Neither Kimiko nor Clay said so, but they both felt it. Neither could place it for a moment, but then Kimiko remembered the night of the Serpent's tail. "Clay, I think that's Raimundo!"

Clay knew better than to doubt her. "C'mon!"

They raced against the wind. The wind made their eyes water and they were blinded with tears. Kimiko wiped her eyes and squinted, her long lashes shielded the wind. When Clay tried to wipe his eyes, he tripped on a tree root and fell. Kimiko didn't stop to wait for him. She kept running, eager to make Raimundo pay for betraying the temple, for siding with Wuya, for breaking their-

The ground abruptly ended. Kimiko tried to stop, but the leaves and mud under her feet made it difficult. She slid to the very edge when she finally stopped. She couldn't move her feet because she didn't trust the pile of leaves and mud she was standing on. One wrong move and it all could slide out underneath her and she would be falling down the trench before her. It didn't help that the wind was pulling her in.

Suddenly something brown shot up right in front of her. Startled, she took a tiny step back and the ground slid forward. She waved her arms wildly while falling down on her butt and sliding into the trench.

We got stuck here. I think Clay should grab her, and Iorek thinks we should let her fall. What do you think?


	9. Fury to Dizziness

Suddenly she stopped. Kimiko looked back to see Clay lying on the edge, spattered in mud, hanging on to the back of her top. Kimiko reached up and grabbed his arm while Clay started pulling her up. Then there was a weird noise, like a straw sucking at what's left in a glass. Clay paused and looked behind him. "What in tarnation-"

Part of the mud that Clay was lying on broke off the edge, taking Clay and Kimiko with it. It was a long way down. Fortunately the mud hit the bottom first, giving them a soft landing. It was unfortunate for the person the mud, Clay, and Kimiko all fell on. He fought until he was able to force his head out of the mud, gasping for breath and spitting out mud. He didn't get much air since both Kimiko and Clay were lying on top of him. "Please- pthoot- remove your- pthoot- gigantic selves from- pthoot- on top of my body." A familiar voice croaked.

"Oh! Sorry Omi!" Kimiko and Clay scrambled off of him. Clay tugged Omi out and wiped him off while Kimiko helped him get air back into his lungs.

"Well the gang's all here." Clay and Kimiko turned to see the speaker. Raimundo stepped out of the shadows, smirking unpleasantly at them.

Kimiko growled. "Raimundo."

"In the flesh." He replied, mimicking Wuya and increasing Kimiko's anger.

If he felt any regret at all for what he did, he sure didn't show it. Kimiko took a few steps back, leaped into the air, and sent a flying kick at Raimundo. "No, wait!" Omi yelled.

Once her foot was a couple inches from Raimundo's head, Raimundo simply waved his hand, murmured "Wind." and Kimiko was blown up and away. Kimiko's fury turned on herself. Yeah. He'd been practicing. In fact, she'd been the one to point that out. But she was too mad to be embarrassed.

The gust pushed her out of the trench and into a rose bush, undoubtedly the result of wood nymph magic. "Stupid wood nymphs!" she yelled.

"Couldn't agree more." a gruff voice growled behind her.

Kimiko tried to see who it was, but the thorns made it difficult. She thrashed out at the bush, but it seemed every time she moved she got pierced. Suddenly the bush vibrated and the world turned upside-down. Then everything went round and round while thorns scratched and stabbed every inch of her skin. Abruptly the thorns released her and she was hurled onto the branch of a redwood. It was soft bark, but still. "Ow." It hurt just to move.

There was a growl from below. Despite herself, Kimiko opened her eyes, glanced down, and instantly wished she hadn't. Not because of what she saw, but she was already dizzy after that merry-go-round-bush ride and looking down made her feel worse. She nearly rolled out of the tree. She did manage to see a wolf circling the tree when she looked down. She recognized it as the one that helped save the goblins. Same rusted copper colored, snarled, thick fur and golden green eyes.

If she had the Star of Hanabi she would roast that flea-bitten rabies carrier to a crisp. But she didn't and she was too dizzy to fight it herself, so there was nothing to do but wait until her head stopped spinning. From the looks of things, that wolf wasn't going anywhere. It would be there when she was ready to make it road-kill. She closed her eyes and rested. She heard the wolf scratch and gnaw at the bark and hoped it got splinters.


	10. Rock Botton Brawls

Raimundo watched as Kimiko was blown out of the trench, then shrugged. "Too bad. I was really hoping to get a chance to talk to all three of you."

"THIRD ARM SASH, EARTH!" Clay yelled. The sash became a solid rock hand which flew a punch at Raimundo. Raimundo leapt into the air just before it hit him and landed on the arm. Startled, Clay withdrew the hand quickly bringing Raimundo closer. Raimundo jumped off onto one of the walls, hanging on to a couple tree roots a few feet above Clay and Omi's heads.

"But I can see none of you are ready yet, so I guess that's a conversation for another time, hmm?"

Clay hated the way Raimundo was smirking. It was so smug. Kind of an I-know-something-you-don't taunt. Clay felt compelled to wipe it off his face. "THIRD ARM SASH, EARTH!" Clay yelled again and flew another punch at Raimundo. Raimundo dodged it by swinging on to the right root, then leaped down, his foot connecting with Clay's face. While Clay was momentarily stunned, Raimundo took the liberty of pulling off the Third Arm Sash and pantsing him. As Raimundo tied the sash around his waist, Clay quickly pulled up his pants and they went into hand-to-hand combat.

During all this, Omi was still just standing near the wall, watching the tussle, and wondering if he should help Clay. He knew he should, but he didn't really want to hurt Raimundo. However, it was his duty to protect the world from evil, no matter what. But was Raimundo really evil?

Someone gave Omi a rude push from behind, interrupting him from his thoughts. Omi turned. He had only a second to see the black-hooded follower, but that was as long as he got before he or she spat in Omi's face, blinding him. When Omi lifted his arm to wipe off the spit the follower kicked him hard in the stomach.

The force sent him to the opposite wall. Even though the air was knocked out of him and where he thought the other wall was, and grabbed onto something long, sturdy, and muddy once he hit it. After he spat out the mouthful of dirt he received from flying into the wall and wiping off his face, he looked up to see he was hanging onto a tree root. Then he looked down to see the follower was scaling the wall up to him while he seemed vulnerable. Omi had fought with this character enough to know that he or she played filthy. Well so could he!

_If you mean play dirty, no, you can't. You're too honorable. _

Yes. That was true. But maybe he could just twist the rules a little.

_Bend the rules._

That too. Omi was getting used to subconsciously answering himself. He used the tree root to swing up and down, building up kinetic energy. The follower stopped and couple inches below him, probably wondering what the hell he was doing. When Omi was swinging to the highest point he get to, he threw himself down feet first, which landed a good hard blow on the follower's face. The follower let go of the wall in surprise and pain. When they hit the floor, there was a hitting, punching, and kicking frenzy.

Meanwhile Clay was getting confused and frustrated. Raimundo was still smirking despite the blows Clay managed to land on him. What was weird was although Raimundo obviously wanted to beat Clay, he hadn't used the Third Arm Sash or his element once. It was like Raimundo wanted a fair fight. But villains never fought fairly if they could help it. They used any advantage they could get. Well, chances were he had been in this place for so long, he had lost his mind.

Another thing Clay couldn't help noticing was how much better at sparring Raimundo had gotten. He was so much more focused, his form was a lot better, and he had even done a few slick moves Clay hadn't seen before.

Back in Omi's fight, the brawl had caused the follower's hood to slide back just enough for Omi to see the face. It belonged to a boy. When Omi saw him the first thing that came to mind was Jack Spicer. The face was different from his and there were no black lines, but there was the same unbelievably pale skin and dark red eyes. Bizarre. Completely unnatural. Even Omi knew that. Of course, at least Jack Spicer's hair color was close to normal. White tuffs of hair stuck out of the boy's hood. Not blonde-white, pure white. If Omi hadn't felt for himself that the kid was solid, he would have thought he was a ghost.

The boy realized what Omi was looking at, and quickly pulled his hood farther up the first chance he got, then resumed the fight. Omi was a bit shaken by the boy's appearance, so he momentarily lost his focus. That was enough for the boy to get the upper hand on the tussle and soon Omi was immobile, pinned underneath him. The boy turned his head to one end of the trench and whistled. Omi followed his gaze and saw the female follower step out of the shadows. She dug into her left jacket pocket and pulled out a tiny wooden box.


	11. See Ya Later!

Kimiko didn't mean to doze off. It just happened. Well, at least she felt a lot better now. She started rubbing the sand out of her eyes before she opened them. As soon as she fully woke up, she would be ready to fight. Fight what? Oh right, the wolf. Was it still there? She couldn't hear it growling and scratching anymore. It must've gotten bored.

Then Kimiko felt a drop of water hit her cheek. Kimiko picked the last of the sand out, opened her eyes, and just about had a heart attack. Standing right over her, was the wolf. How? Wolves couldn't climb. Could they? It snarled when Kimiko opened her eyes, then in a heartbeat opened its jaws and lunged its head at hers. At the same speed, Kimiko brought her knees to her chest and shot her legs straight up, striking the wolf hard on the roof of its mouth with such force that the wolf reared up on its hind legs, lost its balance, and fell out of the tree howling.

Using her chance, Kimiko leaped out of the tree and jogged toward the trench, stopping a few feet from it. She carefully edged closer to it, cautious not to repeat the event of last time, but anxious to see what was going on down there.

She soon got to where it was too risky to go any further, but still couldn't see the bottom. She noticed dirt was rising up from the trench like smoke from a chimney in a snowy winter, so there must've been a fight going on. Oh god, she was starting to sound like Clay. It was bad enough that she had come up with that stupid metaphor back at the pool. That was like something Master Fung would say. It was a good thing Raimundo had left. If he were there, she never would've heard the end of-

There was a low, angry growl behind her. Kimiko slowly turned her head. The wolf was crouched down, preparing to spring at her. Its jaw was hanging wide open with a waterfall of saliva and blood flowing out. Damnit. Kimiko had hoped she had kicked the wolf hard enough for it to receive brain damage. Apparently, she hadn't. She quickly crouched into a fighting pose and waited for it to attack. Strangely, it didn't. It just stayed in the same position, watching her with those golden green eyes intently. Kimiko wasn't even sure if it was breathing.

They were both as still as statues, unblinkingly gazing at each other. They stayed like that practically forever before Kimiko realized that it was waiting for her to make the first move. It finally dawned on her that this wasn't an ordinary wolf. She cursed herself. This was one hell of a time to notice.

She decided to just act. Anything would be better than standing around staring at each other doing nothing. She feinted to the left. The wolf pounced and Kimiko fell to the right so the wolf would land at the bottom of the trench behind her. But instead of the wolf missing her like she had hoped, the wolf's left paw collided with her shoulder, pushing her in with it.

There was no mud to cushion their fall this time, but the wolf landed on its feet, and as luck would have it, Kimiko landed on its back. Neither was injured, so the wolf decided to continue their fight. It began bucking like a wild horse that was unwilling to be broken, restless to throw Kimiko off. Kimiko was hanging on with her legs hooked tightly around the wolf's middle at first, then after a few painful bucks, she grabbed onto the wolf's pelt and hung on for dear life. She pulled her torso and head down onto the wolf's back so they wouldn't constantly feel like they were being jerked from the rest of her body.

She tried to see what was going on around her, but the fast, jerky movement of the wolf made everything blurry and all she could hear was the air whistling past her.

Suddenly something blue jumped into the wolf's path, causing it to stop dead. Kimiko saw for about a millisecond that it was a kid in a blue hooded jacket and some pretty cool shades before the kid shoved a block of wood the size of a chicken egg under the wolf's nose. The wolf leapt backward as if it were fire, then hurled itself onto its back and started rolling, crushing Kimiko and making her lose her grip.

Once she was off, the wolf scrambled up and looked ready to bolt up the wall, but the kid said urgently "No! Silvertongue doesn't know yet and I can't get his attention!"

Silvertongue? Oh right, Raimundo. So the wolf was working for him. That explained a lot. Kimiko tried to lift her head to see where Rai was, but after that wild rodeo, she felt almost as bad as she did a few minutes ago. So she dropped it, and just rolled her head to the right. She saw Clay and Raimundo sparring. Then she saw the wolf charging at Clay. "CLAY, WATCH OUT!" she yelled.

But she was too late. The wolf slammed into Clay hard. The force sent them skidding along the ground, and they wound up with the wolf lying on Clay, nose to muzzle. It bared its teeth in warning at him.

When Raimundo was looking at them, all Kimiko could see was the back of his head. (Well, the back of his hood really.) When he turned to the blue hooded kid, she saw confusion written all over his face. Then his eyes grew wide with anxiety. Kimiko rolled her head to the left. The girl was holding up the block of wood. It looked perfectly ordinary, what was so special about it? Then Kimiko saw the streak of gold on the top half of the side of the block that was facing her. It was a latch. The block was really a box. Now she understood. It wasn't the box that was important. It was what was _inside_ the box.

Before Kimiko could wonder how something so small could be crucial, she noticed that behind the girl, a few feet away, Omi was pinned underneath a kid in a black hoodie. Kimiko shook her head clear and got up, finding she was still a little sore from being crushed, but she was well enough to fight.

But as she started for the black hooded kid, he abruptly jumped off of Omi and began scurrying up the wall as fast as a spider. Kimiko turned and saw that Raimundo and the wolf jumping up off the walls until they reached the top. Clay and Omi got up and brushed themselves off while looking confusedly up at the kids.

The only follower in the trench left was the girl. She called up to the others "I'll meet you guys at the Dwellers!", then opened the box, held it up to her mouth, and whispered something to whatever was inside. The trench was suddenly filled with blinding light. The others leapt to the top and dove into some bushes, knowing they mustn't touch the light.

In a few moments, the light faded, then disappeared. Raimundo stuck out his head to see. "The coast is clear." he told the others.

They crawled out. Raimundo swept up a gust of wind to carry him down the trench and check out the bottom. The wolf lay down to wait for his return, while the black hooded follower was still tugging himself out of the bush. When he was out, he noticed a brown sock stuck to his arm. He eyed the bush suspiciously, reached into it, and pulled out a sneaker. Then he reached back in again and began pulling out various clothing. The other sock and sneaker, a pair of jeans, a pair of plain gray boxers, and a brown sweatshirt. The boy held the clothes out to the wolf. "You wanna change back or what?"

The wolf growled. The boy set the clothes down in front of him and held up his hands. "All right, all right. Geez, I was just asking."

Raimundo rose up out of the trench, landed gracefully on the ground, and walked to the boy and the wolf. "Well, looks like everything went smoothly. Too bad about Daggereyes though."

"What do you mean?" the boy asked. "We're going to meet her, right?"

"Yeah, of course. But she would have been great to have while attacking the harpies on the way there."

The wolf snarled and wagged its tail. "Hang on." the boy said. "What are we going to tell the goblins now?"

Silvertongue grinned. "We tell them the job's been done a lot sooner than we thought and they can launch their attack at anytime. C'mon, we'd better get going."


	12. Getting Weirder

Clay wasn't sure what woke him up. It might have been the splitting headache he got from the concrete-hard surface he was lying on, or the light above him penetrating through his eyelids, or the loud zooming, whirring, and honking noises going by his head. He turned his face away from the light and opened his eyes to see that what he was lying on actually _was_ concrete.

Clay and the others were lying on a sidewalk under a street light in a city somewhere. The noises came from the cars running by them. Clay realized how close they were to the road when another car zoomed past. The breeze it made brushed Clay's hair into his eyes. Wait. Clay touched his head. His hat was gone. He reached up to the concrete above his head to see if it was there, and all he felt was a ledge. Oh crud. He sat up and looked over to the road. Flattened into the middle of the street, was his hat.

Clay groaned, got up, and ran into the street to retrieve it. He quickly discovered only Moses could get it and get out alive. Cars just nearly missed him, some almost crashed into others trying to avoid him, others didn't even try not to hit him. All either yelled or honked at him.

"Watch it, punk!"

"Does this look like the sidewalk to you?"

"Hey Eastwood, get off the road!"

"Screw you!"

"Either use pills to kill yourself or get a life!"

One guy even flipped him the bird. Somehow Clay managed to stumble back to the sidewalk. All the noise woke Kimiko and Omi up. After they checked their surroundings, Omi spoke. "We're home. At least, we are back in our world."

"Uh-huh." Kimiko said looking up at the sky. "Judging by the fact that there's no moon or stars in the sky, I'm going to say the world's still in darkness."

Clay shook out his hat to get it back to normal. "And I'm gonna say due to the fact that nobody seems scared, Wuya hasn't shown herself yet."

"Ahem." Omi cleared his throat. "Is anyone besides me wondering how exactly we got back here?"

Clay and Kimiko stared at him, then nodded. "Okay, let's recap what happened." Kimiko said. "Rai and company clobber us before the girl took out that little box, then start climbing out of the trench like there's no tomorrow. Then the girl opened the box, there's white light everywhere, then we wake up and we're here. Is there any part in there that either of you would like to differ with?"

Clay and Omi both shook their heads. "So, any theory on what that light was?" Clay asked.

"I'm pretty sure that that was a Merkabah." Kimiko answered.

"A Merkawhat?" Omi raised an eyebrow.

"Why don't we head back to the temple while Kimiko fills you in?" Clay suggested.

Kimiko moaned and sent Clay a pleading look. "Couldn't we stay here awhile to rest up a little? It'll do no good to fight Wuya if we're too tired."

Clay then realized how bruised and cut up Kimiko was. She looked more beat up than an amateur rider at a professional rodeo. "Yeah, I reckon it wouldn't hurt if we took a little time off. That's really what Master Fung wanted us to do anyway."

"Could we find someplace with a bathroom?" Omi asked. "I would most appreciate it if I could get a bath."

Clay looked at him. Omi was as dirty as an old boot pulled out of a swamp. And he smelled like one too. Clay nodded.

Using Kimiko's ATM card, they checked into a hotel for the night. Okay, so maybe it wasn't night, but it was to them. Kimiko got ice and bandages for her injuries, Omi got a shower, and they all got a well-deserved rest. When they were ready, they agreed to go back to the temple to get some more shen-gong-wu, go back to the Merkabah they had found in the Grand Canyon, and find Raimundo to see what he knew about Wuya. They knew he could be anywhere in that dimension by now, especially with the major time difference, but they didn't have any other lead.

"We'll use the Longi Kite once we get out of the city so nobody thinks it's doomsday." Kimiko said when they left the hotel. "Clay, you can carry both of us right?"

Unfortunately, both she and Omi were watching Clay nod in response so when they rounded the corner, they didn't see the roller-skating pizza boy coming. He skated right into Omi. They fell to the ground. The pizza box sailed into the air and into Kimiko's arms. "Are you guys okay?"

"Oh, I am fine. Thank you for your concern."

"I'm cool. Thanks."

They got up. Omi started to brush the grit off him.

"Sorry 'bout that, dude." The pizza boy said in a rough voice. "I shouldn't have been going so fast, but I'm running a little late."

"Oh no. It was my fault. I was not looking where I was go-" Omi stopped when he looked up at the boy. He had shaggy, thick, ash-blonde hair, light freckled skin, and a slightly small nose. He was wearing a lime-green t-shirt, jeans, and _sunglasses_. Who in their right mind wore sunglasses in the dark? Sure, the street lights were a little too bright, but still . . .

Kimiko didn't seem to think this was a big deal, and handed the boy the pizza box. "Well, we better get going. Sorry if we made you late."

"No problem. I've still got time." He started rolling away. "Later."

Kimiko and Clay began walking, but Omi stayed watching the boy go. "Hey Omi, you coming?" Clay asked.

Omi suddenly bolted after the boy and jumped him. The pizza box slid along the sideway. When it stopped, a piece of paper attached to the top blew off and landed next to it. "Jesus, what's your problem!" The boy practically spat out the sentence.

"Omi!" Kimiko pried Omi off the kid and Clay helped him up. Kimiko quickly began to think up a reasonable explanation for this. "I'm so sorry, he um, suffers from ah, acute paranoia."

"Why are you wearing sunglasses on a day like this?" Omi asked, bringing Kimiko's and Clay's attention to the fact. Okay, so that was pretty weird.

The boy blinked. "Well come on, they turned up the lights enough to where it's bright enough to be day. Plus, they look good."

Omi thought that was a stupid excuse, even if today's modern kids were strange. Kimiko and Clay seemed satisfied with it though, but Omi knew there was something that wasn't right about this boy. He wriggled out of Kimiko's arms, went over to the pizza, and picked up the scrap of paper. "And what is this? Why is there a blank piece of paper here?"

"Turn it over, kid."

Omi did. On the back was a jumble of numbers and words. "That's the receipt." The boy said. "Can I go now? If I don't deliver this in seven minutes, the pizza's gonna be free."

Shaking his head, Clay picked up the pizza, took the receipt from Omi, held them out to the kid, and smiled. "We're mighty sorry."

The kid took the pizza, but when he grabbed onto the receipt Clay's grip on it tightened and the smiled faded from his face. No. No, the boy couldn't be . . . Clay looked at the boy's face to be sure. Yes, he was. Omi was right. This kid was definitely up to something.

The boy tugged on the receipt. "Dude? Can I have it?"

"Your nails are too neat." Clay said, confusing everyone. What did nails have to do with anything?

The confusion on the boy's face vanished and was replaced with alarm. He started to withdraw his hand, but Clay grabbed his wrists and held them level with his eyes.

"Clay, what are you doing?" Kimiko asked.

"These aren't boy's hands."

"What? He's a girl?" But as she spoke, she began to notice the feminine details of the face. The girl tried to get away, but Clay's grip was too strong.

"Look at her nails. Boys don't usually grow them that long or shape them into crescents."

"Yeah, I can see she's a girl."

Omi suddenly realized he had seen those sunglasses before. "She's the female follower!"

The girl finally stopped struggling and brought her foot up to Clay's groin. When he let go, she tore the receipt from his hand and took off. As she did, Kimiko saw something that made her flush with embarrassment and anger. "I don't believe it! Those are _my_ roller-blades!"


	13. Crackpot

Omi and Kimiko raced after the girl, leaving Clay on the ground clutching his privates.

"Kimiko!" Omi yelled during the chase. "If that girl has your roller-knives from the goblins, there may be a chance she has the other shen-gong-wu!"

Unfortunately, since the girl had Kim's roller-blades, she could go faster than them without tiring easily. After a while, Omi and Kimiko's pace began to slow. They had raced all around the city. The girl may have gotten away if she hadn't done two very stupid things. The first thing was that she was so focused on losing her pursuers that she didn't realize she was going in a huge circle. Second, she looked back to see if they were still after her just as she was rounding a corner. Thus, she ran back into Clay, who had recovered from his painful blow. Before the girl could react, Clay whirled her around so she couldn't kick him again, and grabbed her arms. Once again, the pizza box fell to the ground.

This time the girl didn't struggle. She knew how futile it would be. Clay waited for Omi and Kimiko before her questioned the girl. When they finally showed up, they were so out of breath they could hardly talk. Kimiko didn't let that stop her though. "You-gasp-are so-gasp-dead-gasp-meat. You're-gasp-totally going-gasp-to pay-gasp-for that. Do you have-gasp-any idea how-gasp-much of our time-gasp-you've wasted?"

The girl scoffed. "Your time? I wasn't kidding when I said I was running late you know. Geez, now the pizza's probably ruined after all that. Silvertongue's gonna kill me."

"Oh come on." Kimiko sneered. She had caught her breath now. "You don't actually expect us to believe you came here to pick up a pizza, do you?"

Kimiko reached down and picked up the box. She opened it to reveal a half-cheese, half-pepperoni, medium pizza pie. Kimiko looked at the girl questioningly. The girl gave what Kimiko assumed was a shrug; it was hard to tell with her arms restrained over her head. "There aren't any pizza places in Mundo Tres, and after awhile, you get to miss it. Rustfoot especially."

"Who?" Omi raised an eyebrow.

"Mundo Tres?" Kimiko asked.

The girl gave Kimiko a weird look. "You know," She pointed to the ground as well as she could. "Mundo Um." Then she pointed at the sky. "Mundo Dois."

Clay decided to just skip this and go to the important stuff. "Who are you?"

The girl turned her head toward him and grinned in way that made Clay uncomfortable. "I'd tell ya, but then I'd have to pick apart your mind and soul."

Well. That freaked all of them out. Just something about the way she said it sent chills up their spines. They didn't even really understand what she meant. Omi hastily changed the subject by firing another question. "Why have you chosen to work with the forces of evil?"

The girl snickered at him, then looked at Kimiko. "Seriously, does he really have acute paranoia?"

Kimiko blushed and turned away to hide her smile. Omi have paranoia? That was a laugh. He was the most trusting kid on the planet. Kimiko shook her head.

The girl looked back at Omi. "I'm working with what you call 'the forces of evil' because they don't care about who I am or if I'm insane."

This kid was just getting weirder by the second. And they weren't getting anything good out of her. Kimiko said "You have a Merkabah on you." She didn't bother forming it in a question.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

The girl tried to shrug again. "Makes work more convenient."

"What work? How does the Merkabah make it more convenient?"

"Lucifer's work." The girl smirked. "Now we can devil worship anywhere we like."

Kimiko gave her a _look_. Was she serious? They were questioning an enemy without any threats, so they couldn't be sure of honesty. Heck, this was most likely just a huge waste of time. But they had come this far, so Kimiko decided to keep at it. They may just get a few honest answers from her. "Where'd you get the Merkabah?"

"Bought it."

Kimiko blinked disbelievingly. "You can _buy_ Merkabahs?"

"Yeah. People sell them in Mundo Um for just twenty bucks. But they're pretty much useless if you don't know how to work them or if they're not active."

"What is Mundo Um?" Omi asked.

The girl gave Omi a look that clearly said 'what, are you from Mars?'. "You're standing in it."

Omi looked down at his feet. "Hold on, Omi." Kimiko got out her laptop, used it for a few moments, then got this disgusted look on her face. "Your leader came up with those names, didn't he?"

"Hey, we weren't looking for creative. We just wanted to call it something." The girl said defensively. "We'll give it a real name when it's all over."

"When what's all over?"

The girl gave Kimiko the same look she had given Omi awhile ago. "The war."

"What war?"

"Hold it, Kimiko." Clay said. "Let's take this one step at a time. What's Mundo Um?"

"Well, I found out on a search engine that 'Mundo' is Portuguese for 'World'. And Um, Dois, and Tres means One, Two, and Three."

"So what's World Two?" Clay asked the girl.

"Whatever's beyond the galaxies." She replied.

Kimiko sighed. "So what war are you talk-"

"Why are you wearing sunglasses when there is no sun?" Omi interrupted. It had really been bugging him, he had to ask.

The girl frowned and looked at the ground. "I have to." She said in a low voice. "I don't want to scare anybody."

"What do you mean?"

Her answer was the straw that broke the camel's back. "I don't have any eyeballs."


	14. Back Again

That was it. Without thinking, Clay let go of the girl's wrists. In about a second, the girl whirled around and pushed him hard. Then in two seconds, right before he hit the ground, she wheeled behind him and grabbed the Longi Kite. So as Clay fell, it slid off his back.

"LONGI KITE!" The girl screamed, without even taking the time to put the wings on. The kite carried her into the air. The warriors were starting to realize that they would have to be ready for the unexpected on this quest. They couldn't just stand around like idiots while it happened. They had to be alert and ready to act at all times.

"Quickly!" Omi exclaimed while Kimiko helped Clay up. "We mustn't let her get away!"

But they didn't need to worry about losing the girl. She flew to the roof of a building, landed on the roof, and doubled over. Kimiko pulled Raimundo's binoculars out of her backpack. They didn't usually bring them, but on particularly long or crucial missions, they figured it was best to be prepared.

Kimiko looked through them to see what was wrong with the girl. What she saw caused her temper to rise to the exploding point. The girl was laughing! That's why she had to land, she couldn't hold on to the kite. She was bent over laughing so hard that her sunglasses slid down her nose a bit. The eyelids were closed, but it was obvious that there was something behind them. Oh God. She did have eyeballs. She was just trying to gross Clay out enough to let her go.

Kimiko pulled the Star of Hanabi out. "STAR OF HANABI, FIRE!" She yelled and threw the now flaming star. The girl straightened up. The star zipped past her, right where her head had just been, then zoomed back to Kimiko. The girl stopped grinning. She got the message. She had made them mad enough to kill. Well, just Kimiko actually, but she didn't know that. She ducked down on the roof out of Kimiko's sight.

"Was that really necessary?" Clay asked.

"She was laughing at us. And it turns out she does have eyeballs."

"What?"

"You guys go up to her. I'll stay and make sure that she doesn't fly off."

"Wait. I fail to understand why she would tell us she doesn't have eyes when she really does." Omi said.

"She was trying to freak us out enough to not want to touch her."

Clay groaned. "Well, it worked. Honestly, she was getting creepier than-"

The girl poked her head up into sight. "STAR OF HANABI, FIRE!" Kimiko yelled and threw the star again. The girl pulled her head back down just in time. "Guys, just go before she gets away."

Omi and Clay ran to the building, through its doors, and into the elevator. Clay pushed the top button and they started moving up.

"Now then, we must be most careful as we recapture the girl." Omi said. "From what we've learned, she is very crafty."

When they reached the roof, they were greeted by a stream of curses coming from behind them. They tiptoed out of the elevator and peeked around it to see the girl. She was lying down on her back digging through her pockets. As she did, scraps of paper, polished stones, and red things Clay thought were jawbreakers spilled out. "Freaking Silvertongue." The girl muttered. "Next time run you own friggin' errands. You owe me big time for this. I swear he does this just to make me pay for not being able to- ah ha!"

She pulled a compact mirror out of her right pocket and the wooden box that held the Merkabah out of the left. After she stuffed everything that fell out back in her pockets, she set them beside her, brought her knees up to her chest and wrestled the roller-blades off. While she was busy, Omi backed up preparing to spring. Unfortunately, he jumped just as the girl raised up a leg trying to get the roller-blades off causing Kimiko to activate the Star of Hanabi in her element. The girl pulled the leg back down, so Omi became the new target. The star hit him in the shoulder, knocking him backward and pinning his robes to the back of the elevator. He quickly put the fire out with the Orb of Tsunami. Clay emerged to help free him. "Shit!" The girl cried when she saw them.

She scooped up the roller-blades, compact, and box and quickly got to her feet. She hurled the roller-blades directly at Kimiko, opened the compact and box, held the mirror out in front of her at an angle, then brought the box up near her mouth and muttered something. The blinding light filled the roof. Some of it reflected off the mirror and bounced down to where Kimiko was standing. "NOT AGAIN!" Kimiko screamed.

She shut her eyes and covered them with her hands to block out the light. The solid concrete under her vanished, and once again she was pulled into a whirlpool of flames.

Suddenly she fell gently on something cold, wet, and soft and felt a cool breeze brush her skin. It felt good. She brought her hands down and opened her eyes. She was in a lush valley surrounded by hills and trees. She looked down at her skin. It wasn't nearly as bad as last time. Just really red and too warm. She heard a whimpering on her far left. She looked to see a soaking wet Omi, shivering violently in the breeze, about a yard away. Kimiko briskly went to him and wrapped him up in a hug. Omi grinned, probably more from getting a girl hug than getting warm.

Kimiko heard a moan on her right. She looked to see Clay lying on the grass smeared in dirt and rubbing his head. She let go of Omi, turned to Clay, and extended a hand to help him up. "We must be getting used to this." She told them. "We didn't pass out during the trip this time."


	15. Meet the Followers

Clay rubbed some dirt out of his hair. "Hang on. How come we weren't like this when we went back home?"

Kimiko shrugged. "Got me."

Omi started shivering again. Kimiko started drying him off with the sleeves of her robes. "How come Clay's element didn't mix with mine this time?" Omi asked.

"We weren't touching then, I guess." Clay answered.

Omi wrung out the water out of parts of his robe. "Why didn't we end up in the nymphs' forest again? It was warmer there." Omi muttered.

Kimiko replied. "Remember what the girl said about knowing how to use Merkabahs? She probably knows how to make a Merkabah take her anywhere she wants."

Clay started looking around. "Where is the girl anyhow?"

Kimiko and Omi started looking around too. "That's weird." Kimiko murmured. "I know we didn't black out. So she's got to be close by."

Clay glanced toward a large body of trees. He took eight steps in its direction, then stepped on something that felt like a rock, but was too perfectly rounded. He looked down and lifted his foot. Underneath was what looked like a filthy red jawbreaker. Clay picked it up and turned back to Omi and Kimiko. "Hey, look." He showed it to them. "The girl had tons of these stored in her pockets. I'm bettin' she's hiding out over there."

Clay pointed to the trees. Omi nodded, remembering the trench. "Yes, they seem to enjoy dark habitats."

They started in the direction of the trees. They were only a yard away from them, when eerie violin music began playing from them. It made the hair on the back of the apprentices' necks stand on end. "Okay, this seems somehow to be a bad omen." Omi commented.

"More like something out of a horror movie." Kimiko said.

"Either way, it doesn't look like anything good's gonna happen." Clay said.

Kimiko drew the Star of Hanabi. "Well come on, it's not like we can't handle anything dished out at us." And she stepped in onto the trees.

Omi took out the Orb of Tsunami and followed. Clay stayed were he was. "Clay, if this were like a horror movie, it would be happening at night." Kimiko said.

Clay's eyes strayed to the sky. "It's getting' a little dark, Kimiko."

"Hopefully we'll be outta here before nightfall. Now come on."

Clay went in. They walked as quietly as they could, following the violin music. Kimiko was wrong. It was only a couple minutes before night had fallen. Kimiko quietly activated the Star of Hanabi, causing it to give off a gentle glow.

Suddenly the music stopped. The warriors froze. It was way too quiet. No crickets, birds, frogs, nothing. It was so quiet Omi held his breath for fear of someone hearing him. Kimiko and Clay could hear the difference and followed his example. Time seemed to have stopped completely. It almost felt like something was waiting.

Thankfully, the violin music started up again, but this time it was more upbeat. The warriors all breathed out in relief and began walking again. Omi smiled. This music was wholly different from the previous music. It seemed like a good omen. And it was a throwy tune.

_Catchy._

Alright.

Kimiko liked the music too. It sounded familiar, but she couldn't put her finger on it. However, Clay could. "Hey Kimiko, have you ever seen 'Fiddler on the Roof'?

It took Kimiko a minute to remember. "Yeah! So that's what this is from."

"I believe you mean 'a' fiddler on the roof, Clay." Omi said.

"No. 'Fiddler on the Roof' is the name of a movie, Omi. We'll show it to ya sometime."

"Okay." Omi tried to hide his disappointment. He thought that for once he could finally correct the others on their language. They were getting closer. Kimiko put out the Star so no one saw them. Soon they came to four trees that were close together, making the ways between them thick with branches. The source of the music and a light were right behind them. Kimiko pushed one branch down a little and peeked over it. Her eyes got wide. She franticly motioned for Omi and Clay to do the same. They quietly went to different spaces and copied her.

They were looking at the right side of a horseless caravan with a campfire near it. Balanced on the roof was the kid in the black hoodie, playing the violin. The kid in the brown sweatshirt was sitting on the right back wheel with his arms folded across his chest, glaring at the ground. He freed one of his arms to remove a cigarette from between his lips and blew a perfect smoke ring before putting it back. Raimundo was leaning against a tree with his hands stuffed in his pockets. It took all Kimiko's willpower to restrain herself from attacking him.

All of them had their hoods down. Omi was relieved to see that the boy wearing the brown sweatshirt had sort of brownish-red hair and brown eyes. If not for those differences, he could have easily passed for Raimundo's twin. He wanted to ask Kimiko what that white stick with the flaming end was, but he feared it may be possible that Raimundo or one of the boys may hear their footsteps or whispers over the music.

Right then the piece ended. The white-haired boy took a bow as though he was in front of an audience. The redhead took a drag on his cigarette and took it out of his mouth to speak. "Face it, Silvertongue. She couldn't make it."

Kimiko couldn't help but feel she had heard that voice before. And that hair. It looked so familiar . . . .

"Oh very supportive." The boy on the roof said sarcastically. "C'mon. Daggereyes has never let us down before and she's sure as hell not going to start now."

Kimiko stared at the albino. She'd heard about them, but seeing one in real life was weird.

"You sure you've got that watch set right?" The redhead asked him.

The albino took an old fashioned watch out of his pocket. Instead of just having one knob at the top, the watch had one on each side of it. The kid looked at the watch and said "Yep. Thirty minutes there for twenty-four hours here." Then shoved it back in his pocket.

Clay scowled. What did that mean? It couldn't mean that for every fifteen minutes in their world was a day here. Kimiko said she was here for a day and a half when it was just a minute where he and Omi were. Unless . . . . maybe time moved at different rates. That watch must tell them what kind. These guys had pretty useful stuff. Clay thought about how the girl had said that the Merkabah made work more convenient for them. What if they had other stuff like it that also made their work more convenient? Come to think of it, what did they work on?

The albino began to play another tune. Unlike the last one, it was sad. He was only thirty seconds into it when the redhead interrupted him again. "Do you have to play that kind of crap at night? Geez, it's like a scene from a horror movie or something."

"Hey, you wanna come up here and play something different, be my guest." The boy retorted.

"Why are you complaining, Rustfoot?" Raimundo said. "If this were a horror movie, you'd be the monster."

The kid now known as Rustfoot grinned. "Yeah." And he took another drag.

The albino continued playing. It lasted six minutes. When it was over, Raimundo spoke. "What's taking her so long?"

Rustfoot smirked. "Knowing her, she's probably sitting in the middle of the field waiting for morning."

A pizza box emerged from the trees on the right, sailed through the air, and squarely hit him in the side of the head, causing him to bite down on his cigarette. The girl appeared, in her blue jacket, from its source. "I thought I'd give that to you first since you have so much faith in me."

Rustfoot rubbed the side of his head. "About time, you freak. We've been waiting all day for you."

The albino jumped off the roof and strolled over to the girl. "Daggereyes! Good to see you back!"

The girl smiled. "Thanks, Moonskin. I'm sorry I missed the concert. But I heard your last piece. It was beautiful."

The boy that was apparently called Moonskin beamed. "Thank you. Compliments are always appreciated."

"So's your music."

"I'm not certain everyone agrees with you." Moonskin glanced back at Rustfoot, who rolled his eyes and snatched up the pizza box.

"Don't worry. Everyone with taste does."

Rustfoot placed his cigarette next to him and pretended to gag. Then he opened the box. "Pizza time."

Moonskin walked to the left end of the caravan and though the door into it. As Rustfoot divided the pizza, Raimundo walked over to the girl now known as Daggereyes. She looked apologetically at him. He put his hands on his hips. "You're late."

"I know, I'm real sorry. I bumped into the xiaolin dragons on the way. I had a little trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" There was a hint of fear in Raimundo's voice.

"Nothing you need to worry about."

Raimundo looked at her doubtfully. "You sure?"

"Yes."

Raimundo relaxed and let one of his arms drop. "Did you remember to pick up the new office supplies I asked you to get next time you went?"

"Oww!"

Everyone looked over at Rustfoot, who was covering his mouth and holding a slice of pepperoni pizza in front of him. "What'd you order, half and half with rocks stuffed in the crust?"

Daggereyes sighed, went over to him, and took the slice. She reached between the layers of cheese and crust and pulled out the Eye of Dashi. Then she reached into the rest of the pizza and unearthed the Phoenix Tear and the Heart of Jong.


	16. Nighttime Banter

I know this should have been somewhere sooner, but better late than never. I don't own Xiaolin Showdown _or_ Daggereyes, Moonskin, and Rustfoot. Daggereyes is from the book 'The Shamer's Daughter', Rustfoot is from 'Blood and Chocolate', and Moonskin is from 'The Silver Kiss'. For those of you that have read those, sorry to have ruined the surprises that come later. For those of you that haven't, they're excellent books, but please don't read them until after the surprises come.

Clay was dumbstruck. Kimiko gripped her branch. Omi's eyes widened. Their reactions were different, but their thoughts were identical. How did she get those? The city they were in wasn't even near the Xiaolin Temple. And where did she find the Phoenix Tear? How did she even know where to look?

Daggereyes wiped the sauce and cheese off the shen-gong-wu and handed them to Raimundo. "Did I get 'em all?"

Raimundo looked over the shen-gong-wu appraisingly, grinning. "You got enough. Thanks."

Daggereyes pulled the Longi Kite off and held it out to him. "I swiped this too."

Raimundo took it. "Cool. Nice work."

Daggereyes nodded, beaming.

Moonskin came out of the caravan, minus his violin. "What'd I miss?"

"Daggereyes got the supplies." Rustfoot informed him.

"Great. So, Silvertongue, you want me to work on the mirror?"

"No, I can do it. You and Rustfoot can go out now if you want."

"Okay. Thanks a lot." He turned to Rustfoot. "You coming?"

Rustfoot straitened out his cigarette and put it back in his mouth. "I'm gonna stay a little longer. Catch up with ya later."

Moonskin walked into the trees. This made the warriors nervous. Now they could be discovered if they stayed here and without the violin music their footsteps could be heard. Their best chance was to stay as still as they could.

Raimundo shifted all the shen-gong-wu to his left arm and held his right hand out to Daggereyes. She dug into her pocket and pulled out two of the red things. She placed one on her tongue and gave the other to Raimundo, who popped it into his mouth and, with a grimace, started sucking on it. "Thanks."

Rustfoot glanced disgustedly at them. "How can either of you stand sucking on that crap?"

Daggereyes made a choking noise and covered her mouth. Raimundo looked at him, cocking an eyebrow and grinning disbelievingly. "You've gotta be kidding me, Rustfoot."

Daggereyes turned to him with a smirk. "We could ask you the same thing."

Rustfoot's ears turned red. He took a drag and held up a hand. Kimiko almost let go of her branch. His finger nails grew three inches in sharp points. "Don't you fish sticks make me get ugly."

"I thought you were in the ugly form." Raimundo laughed.

Daggereyes took two slices of pepperoni and one slice of cheese out of the pizza box and handed them to Raimundo. He turned, walked to the caravan door, and went in. Daggereyes swallowed whatever was in her mouth, took a slice of cheese pizza, and sat beside the wheel Rustfoot was on. "Is the Dweller's village still standing?"

"Don't worry. We waited for you. We know you've been waiting for a chance like this for some time."

"You have no idea." Daggereyes clenched her fists. "I can't wait for tomorrow."

"Well, try to get some sleep. Revenge won't feel real sweet if you're too tired to enjoy it."

"I'll wait 'till Silvertongue's done."

They sat in silence for a moment. Daggereyes feed the fire a couple sticks and finished her pizza. Rustfoot blew a smoke ring and said in a soft voice "Seriously. I'm glad you made it back okay."

Daggereyes smiled. "Thanks. I appreciate you waiting up for me."

"No problem."

The caravan door opened. Raimundo poked his head out.

"How's it going?" Rustfoot asked.

"Good. There's not that much left to do, but it can wait 'till tomorrow. Daggereyes, you ready to come in?"

"Yeah." Then her smile faded. "Uh, Silvertongue. . ." She sighed, dug into her pockets, slowly pulled out a scrap of paper, and held it up. Kimiko could see by the jumble of numbers on it that it was the receipt from the pizza. Then a possibility struck her. What if the receipt was actually a secret message and the numbers were code for something? Her hypothesis was confirmed when Daggereyes said "Silvertongue, you got an update from the watchers."

Raimundo rushed over to her and grabbed the piece of paper. Then he opened his mouth, pressed the paper onto the roof of his mouth, and closed his mouth and eyes. Kimiko blinked. What, he didn't want to hear from them or something? What were watchers? Why did he do that? Maybe she was wrong about the numbers. Maybe it had a taste on it that was code so no one could decipher it. No, that was too paranoid. Who would go through that much trouble and why?

Raimundo held the paper in his mouth for awhile. It looked like he was holding his breath. His expression was unreadable, but it seemed with every five seconds his face got paler. Finally he exhaled, spat the paper into his hand, and slipped it into his pocket. Rustfoot cocked his head. "Well?"

Raimundo turned, walked to the fire, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and watched the flames. "They found another temple in Mundo Um."

When he said this, Rustfoot inhaled deeper than he meant to and started coughing on cigarette smoke so hard that he fell off the wheel. Daggereyes pushed her sunglasses down a notch, peering over them at Raimundo. Without taking her eyes off him, she reached over and pinched out the cigarette that had fallen from Rustfoot's mouth. The apprentices were confused. Did he mean a xiaolin temple? Were there more than one? They had no idea what was going on, but they all could tell it was crucial. When Rustfoot had finally stopped coughing, Raimundo said "You know, you really should give up that junk."

"Should we go over there?" Daggereyes asked.

"No need. Everyone there's dead now."

Everything went completely still. Omi struggled to understand. Did Raimundo not want a xiaolin temple to be harmed yet so they could get something from it? Or was this not a xiaolin temple, but a temple that he and his allies were protecting? Omi desperately hoped it was the second option. He could not bear it if a xiaolin temple had fallen because he was not there to protect it.

Daggereyes whispered "Were they dead when the watchers found them or . . . ."

She left the sentence unfinished. Raimundo seemed to hesitate before he answered. "The watchers found four alive. Of course, none of them were really that far from death. They were questioned before they were put out of their misery."

"And?" Rustfoot asked.

Raimundo shrugged. "Nothing new."

"What happened to the monks in the temple?"

Clay raised an eyebrow. Wasn't that what they were just talking about? If the monks weren't the ones dead, who were they talking about? Who else would be at a temple?

"None of the monks are even aware the watchers went in. That's kind of the whole point of an inside observation."

"What? The watchers didn't even knock off one at the door?"

"For crying out loud, Rustfoot. They're spies, not assassins. They only kill for good causes."

"_This _was a good cause."

"If they killed a monk, they could've been caught."

Rustfoot was about to retort when Daggereyes suddenly said "Are you sure that there was nothing other the watchers could do for the outcasts other than kill them?"

Raimundo turned. "I asked the watchers that same question last time they did the job." He answered gravely. "This time they made sure I knew for sure."

Kimiko was wondering what he meant by that and what outcasts were when something tapped her shoulder. She automatically turned her head. Her eyes grew wide as saucers and she let out a scream that pierced the night.

Sorry this took so long, but school has been hectic lately.


	17. Sticky Situations

Everyone jumped at the scream. Kimiko was looking into the face of a huge, white, bloodshot-eyed, hideous, bat. She stumbled backward through the braches to get away from it, lost her balance, and fell a couple feet from the campfire. Every eye fell on her. Omi instinctively ran over to her and helped her up, blowing his cover. Clay smacked his forehead. The bat turned to him and made a weird sound that got Clay's attention and caused him to jump over with Kimiko and Omi. Rustfoot's expression seemed to say 'Well this is an interesting situation'. Daggereyes's face was to the ground and she was biting her thumb knuckle. Raimundo looked annoyed. "Daggereyes, you were supposed to leave them there. Did you forget the why you went in the first place?"

"No. I – I thought I left them there. I swear, I told it short range."

"Apparently not short enough." He sighed. "Okay, let's get this over with."

Kimiko's anger rose. He said it like they were nothing more than bugs that needed to be squashed and that they weren't even decent enough to fight. Of course, he and his team did kick their butts pretty badly last time. Daggereyes got up, walked over the caravan door, opened it, and then turned to them and yelled "PRONTO JOGO VA!" Then she went in and slammed the door behind her.

The moment Daggereyes yelled, Omi felt something grip his upper arms and before he knew it, he was looking down on the forest. He looked up to see the monstrous bat. His reaction was the same as Kimiko's. He doused it in the face using the Orb of Tsunami. The bat let out a terrible ear-splitting scream and threw Omi to the side. Omi then realized how high he was. He got an idea when he saw he would be landing in a small narrow clearing. As he fell he fired a stream of water at the spot. The water pressure slowed him down until he finally stopped falling and he had the stream lower him to the ground. He stepped forward when something torpedoed by right where he was just standing. The bat flew back up into the sky and torpedoed itself and Omi again. Omi fired streams of ice and water at it, but it dodged them. Omi dodged it when it came at him. If Kimiko or Raimundo were there they might have commented on how much this looked like a scene from King Kong. This went on for awhile.

When the bat took Omi Kimiko tried to leap for him, but someone grabbed her ankle and hurled her toward the trees. Kimiko aimed her body to slide between the branches, then grabbed onto one and threw herself to the ground below, landing on her feet. She brushed off her robes and looked up just in time to see Rustfoot practically flying toward her. She leaned out of the way so he just brushed her robes. Instead of landing a face-plant in the dirt like Kimiko had hoped, he landed perfectly on his feet, grinning madly. "You ain't going nowhere. You and I have a score to settle." As he spoke, his voice seemed to get weaker, like he had a frog in his throat. "You know, it took two weeks for that scrape to heal and it hurt like hell."

Kimiko's eyes grew to the size of saucers. She remembered why his voice and hair was familiar. No, that couldn't be. But she knew she was right when the kid's nails grew four inches long and when his mouth and nose pushed away from his face. His grin was now made up of dagger-sharp teeth and his nose had flattened and blackened. Rust-red hair covered his ears as they changed into their wolf state. He wasn't in his complete wolf shape as he was when Kimiko had seen him in the nymph's forest, but he had changed enough to let her know it was him.

Kimiko wasn't sure if she wanted to scream, run, or both. Then Rustfoot growled and attacked and Kimiko went into her warrior mode. She was careful not to be pierced by the teeth or claws for fear the tales of werewolf's wounds might be true. She knew she shouldn't be surprised seeing a werewolf after seeing a dragon, a ghost, wood nymphs, and goblins, but still. This was just too weird.

She tried using absolute focus to fight this creature, but she found it hard while there was something nagging at the corner of her mind. Something to do with that albino. And that bat. She knew she should be able to get this connection right off the bat. Bat . . . boy . . . bat . . . boy . . . no. A vampire? Would Raimundo really travel with a vampire? What was she thinking, she hardly knew him anymore. Anything was possible. And that would explain why the boy was so pale. Vampires didn't have blood, did they? That was why they sucked other peoples' blood. Wait, the bat had taken Omi . . . oh no. Kimiko was so occupied with fighting the Rustfoot and this disturbing thought, that she didn't realize Rustfoot was leading her farther away from the clearing.

Clay started to go after Kimiko when Rustfoot threw her, but Rustfoot shoved him down and followed Kimiko instead. Clay heard a chuckle behind him. "That meant go, in case you were wondering."

Clay slowly turned his head to Raimundo and glared. "You're teaching everyone here Portuguese now?"

Raimundo shrugged. "Hey, no one here knows it so it works for code."

Clay didn't know how to answer that. He got up, then realized what just happened. "So you're paring all of us up? Don't have enough backbone to fight your own battles?"

"If I recall the last times we fought in Mundo Um, I think I did a pretty good job whooping your butts by myself."

Clay recalled as well. "So why don't you see if you can do it again?"

"Remember what I told you back in the goblins' forest?"

Clay growled. "That forest is home to the wood nymphs."

Raimundo put on that I-know-something-you-don't smirk that Clay hated. "Riiiiiiight. Anyway, do you remember what I told you?"

Clay couldn't. He was too angry then to remember what. He shook his head slowly, teeth gritted.

"I said that I was really hoping for a chance to talk to you all. But no of you were ready to listen yet. You're still not-"

"Why should we listen to you, you treacherous snake?" Clay snarled.

"That's exactly what I'm talking about. In order to fully understand what's going on, you have to put aside your anger and-"

"Don't you dare lecture me." Clay was getting madder listening to Raimundo talk to him as if he didn't know any better and looking at that smirk. Although he never really wanted to rub this in Raimundo's face, he knew it would guarantee that smirk gone. "I don't need to be lectured by someone who couldn't make it to the next level."

To Clay's shock, this just made Raimundo laugh. "You really don't understand at all, do you? This has absolutely nothing to do with the stupid promotion."

Clay took this in. "Then why did you leave?"

"Because I was sick of the temple. Speaking of which, how's Master Fung doing?"

Clay couldn't remember the last time he felt so enraged. "_You were sick of the temple?_ _That was why you threw away our friendship and went to the dark side?_"

Raimundo's smirk finally vanished. For some reason that calmed Clay a little. Raimundo stared at the ground for a couple seconds like he was thinking, then looked back up Clay. "No."

Clay's anger subsided and was replaced with confusion. "What?"

"That wasn't why. How is Master Fung doing?"

"Wait a sec, Raimundo-" That was definitely a mistake.

Silvertongue's eyes flashed and Clay was flat on the ground before he knew it with something cold and smooth pressed against his throat. A voice hissed in his ear. "My name is Silvertongue."


	18. Dojo Returns

I'm really sorry this took so long. I had a huge writer's block and a certain clashed heap of fur and feathers was too lazy to help me with it for quite some time. To be fair, male lions do sleep for twenty-three hours a day. I guess I'm lucky Iorek doesn't always sleep for that long. But enough excuses, here's the chapter.

Clay could hardly believe Raimundo was holding a knife to his throat. Raimundo, his old buddy. He and Kimiko knew Rai had changed, but they didn't think he'd changed this much. He remembered Kimiko saying Raimundo killed anything that breathed and wondered if there just may be some truth to that. "Say it." Rai's voice hissed again.

Clay looked up at Raimundo and was shocked by what he saw. There was something in Raimundo's eyes that Clay had seen once before a long time ago and had hoped never to see again. Malice. Pure malice. Clay gasped in horror at what he was looking at. Then he cringed when he felt a sharp pain at his throat, and then feeling warm liquid run over it. "What's my name?" Raimundo asked.

Clay closed his eyes. What did it matter if he called him Raimundo or Silvertongue? But he was in no position to question him. Clay looked back up at him. "Silvertongue."

Raimundo grinned in a way that made Clay uneasy. "Good. Glad to see you're finally paying attention. It'd be great if you could keep that up for a couple more minutes. Look, what I'm about to say I'm only going to say once and it's pretty important if you're interested in keeping your life, so listen up. What happened back then may not seem that long ago to you, but for me that was practically decades ago. Some stuff I can't even remember and you know what? I don't care. It doesn't matter. Here's the part that may help keep you alive. You need to stop living in the past and focus on the present. What matters is what's happening now. For example, I'm sure what matters most to you most right now is getting yourself, Kimiko, and Omi out of this forest alive. Then afterwards stopping Wuya, and then probably after that Master Fung will have you try to bring us down."

Before he could stop himself, Clay blurted "Who's us? What side are you on?"

Clay feared that might make Raimundo sink the knife deeper, but Raimundo frowned thoughtfully. "Fair question. Let's see, you know that there's Xiaolin and Heylin. We don't really have a name, but we're not with them if that's what you mean."

"You mean you're neither good nor evil?" Clay felt little danger talking since Raimundo seemed to have regained some sanity.

Rai looked confused by his question. "Who said anything about-"

He was interrupted by a twig snapping nearby. They both automatically looked over to where the sound came from. Clay's heart skipped a beat. Slithering out of a bush was Dojo. He didn't see them until he was all the way out. When he did, he froze. His eyes bugged out and he started shaking more violently than Clay had ever seen him. Clay was so happy to finally see Dojo again, he wasn't at first aware that Raimundo had removed the knife and gotten up.

Dojo turned to run (or slither away quickly, whatever), but Raimundo tossed the knife. It pinned the furry part of Dojo's tail into the ground. Dojo frantically pulled at it, but it was too deep for his tiny front legs to manage. Raimundo reached for him. Clay was up off the ground in a second. There was no way in hell Rai was going to hurt Dojo if he could help it. He grabbed Raimundo and threw him at a tree trunk. Raimundo landed on it like a tree frog and pushed off, torpedoing back to Clay, who was ready this time. He dodged him, grabbed his legs, and tossed him into the air. Raimundo used the wind to hold himself up, then held a hand out in Dojo's direction. A strong vacuum-like gust sucked the knife out of the ground along with Dojo, up to Rai. Clay jumped forward and caught Dojo just in time. "Let go of him, Clay." Raimundo said a bit too calmly. "This is between him and me."

"Over my dead body." Clay growled.

Dojo shuddered. "You could've said anything and you had to say that."

Raimundo smiled insanely. "I might take you up on that."

Suddenly there was a hideous inhuman shriek that made Clay's skin crawl. Rai looked in its direction surprisingly at first, then he looked annoyed. "I told him it would be a mistake."

He made a hacking sound and spat on Clay's hat. Clay took it off and shot a disgusted look at Rai. Dojo was looking at the hat. "Clay, you might want to throw that away."

"I'll just wash it."

"No, Clay, look at it."

Clay glanced down at his hat and did a double take. The saliva was growing and forming into something long. Clay threw down the hat, but at that moment it jumped on him and began wrapping around his arms and torso. He tried to fight it off, but it was sticking to him and he couldn't break though it. It was still growing. One end by Clay's head was shaped into a flat rounded object of some kind. Two areas of spit on opposite sides parted slightly to reveal a sickly green color. The saliva had become a snake. Clay lost his balance and fell on his back. The snake opened its mouth and sank its jaws into the ground so he couldn't move around much. Clay looked down in front of him to see if Dojo was okay. He was. His head was sticking up between the coils so he could breathe. Half amazed, half grossed out, Clay looked up at Raimundo, who was grinning mischievously. "Trust me, you do **not** want to know how I can do that. Now don't move, I've gotta go take care of something. I'll be back as fast as I'm gone."

As soon as the last word was out of his mouth, he vanished. Just like that. Clay blinked. How many new tricks had the kid learned? Dojo squirmed against him. "Any ideas on how to get out of this before he gets back?"

Clay eyed the head beside him. "None come to mind." He looked down at Dojo. "Wait, can't you bust through by growing larger?"

"I can't. Awhile ago Silvertongue did something to keep me in this size."

If Clay wasn't baffled by all this stuff Raimundo was able to do, he may have noticed Dojo calling Rai Silvertongue.

"How?"

"I don't know, he's got tons of tricks up his sleeve."

"Speaking of which, Dojo, do you have any idea on how in tarnation Rai did what he just did?"

"If you mean the spit thing, no and I'd rather not think how. If you mean the disappearing thing, I think that's what happens if you use the Tiger Claws and the Serpent's Tail. I'm pretty sure now that he wasn't affected by the Reversing Mirror after all because he didn't activate it."

"You mean the Tiger Claws and the Serpent's Tail enable him to just go where ever he wants by himself in the blink of an eye?"

"No, it's not as simple as that. You know the phase 'vanishing into thin air'? That's similar to what Raimundo's doing. Except he's _becoming_ the thin air. Pretty appropriate for his element, huh?"


	19. Caught

Sorry I haven't updated in awhile. Anyway, I realized I don't usually say thank you for the reviews. I know I should. The last ones were possibly the nicest things anyone's even said to me. Thank you.

dArkliTe-sPirit: Thanks, but you didn't really to do that math because it doesn't really work that way. Dojo will explain in this chapter

Elemental-Zero: Thanks. I really appreciate that.

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Omi had finally managed to hit the ghastly beast with a jet of water. It shrieked more horribly than before, fell from the sky, and hit the ground with a painful thump. It lay twitching. Omi blinked. He had only hit it once. Was it really that easy? He picked up a nearby stick and tossed it at the creature. It flinched when it was hit and to Omi's astonishment, began to change into the white-haired boy, Moonskin. So that was the reason for his bizarre appearance. He was a monster. He started wiping his skin hard as though he was soaked in acid and not water. Omi went to him, grabbed him just above his hood, and lifted so he could look into his face. Moonskin's eyes were full of pain. Omi thought it must be because of the fall and decided this would be a good time to get right to the tip.

_Don't you mean point?_

That too. "What are you?"

Moonskin flinched as if Omi had hit him again. He opened his mouth and said in a hoarse voice "A creature that's been dead for nearly five-hundred years, yet continues to live whether it wants to or not."

Although Omi was a little crawled-in by the answer, he remembered what happened with the girl, Daggereyes, and willed himself to keep a strong hold on the boy's hood no matter what.

_Creeped-out, not crawled-in._

Fine. "Why have you chosen to work with the forces of evil?"

Moonskin's voice was so hoarse Omi could barely hear him. "What you call 'the forces of evil' is the only place I have left to turn and still keep my honor. Also no one cares whether I'm dead or alive."

Omi searched his mind for a subject less disturbing and more important. Then he remembered. "What is this war your companion, Daggereyes, speaks of?"

Moonskin's eyes rolled up into his head and his eyelids closed. Omi started to shake him so he could continue questioning him, but then something behind Omi grabbed his arms, pried his off of Moonskin, and flung him away. Omi jumped up and saw Raimundo attempting to make Moonskin stand while saying to him "I told you you should've gone for the girl. Less risk of defeat. Sorry about this, but you brought it on yourself."

Raimundo pulled a small red ball from his mouth which Omi recognized as the thing Daggereyes gave him with his pizza. Raimundo forced Moonskin's mouth open and dropped the ball inside. Moonskin's eyes flew open. He changed into his monstrous bat form in the time Omi blinked, thrashed out of Raimundo's grip, lunged at Omi, and knocked him down.

Omi was struck again and again. He tried to fight the bat, but it was moving so fast it was scarcely a blur. Suddenly Omi felt a sharp pain in his left arm. When he looked at it, part of his sleeve was ripped away revealing a huge gash. A stream of blood began to trickle out. The bat stopped abruptly beside the wound. Something was gleaming menacingly in its red eyes that frightened Omi. Its head started moving closer to the wound. "Okay, that's good!" Raimundo shouted.

The bat was thrown six feet backward by some invisible force. When Omi picked himself up, he found that he was trapped inside a tornado. He jumped and tried to punch and kick at it, but he was unable to break through the wind surrounding him. Then he realized the bat was running directly at him and instinctively shielded himself with his arms. But the bat crashed against the wind barrier and was thrown backward again. It got up and threw itself at the wall of wind again and again, but had about as much success of breaking it as Omi, who was suddenly thankful the whirlwind was there.

Then a thought ran through Omi's head. If Raimundo could create something this strong without shen-gong-wu, it must surely have taken a great deal of energy out of him. But when he looked at Raimundo, he was surprised to see that he didn't look tired at all. He was just standing there gazing unblinkingly at the tornado. Omi was shocked. Raimundo had indeed mastered his element. Omi was amazed that this was the same Xiaolin dragon that could not even do chores without complaining about it, turning it into a game, or avoiding it in every way possible.

The bat was thrown back once more and didn't get up this time, panting heavily. It slowly changed back into Moonskin. Raimundo walked over to him and helped him up. "You think you'll live?"

Moonskin lost his balance and fell into Raimundo, who propped him against him. "I guess so. I can't believe you and Daggereyes actually _like_ that stuff."

Raimundo half shrugged. Moonskin looked at Omi and his eyes fell to the gash. The frightening gleam in his eyes returned and made Omi so uncomfortable that he covered the cut with his hand. Oddly enough, the gleam vanished and Moonskin shook his head as though to clear it. Then he looked at Raimundo. "So if you don't want him dead, what should we do with him?"

Raimundo examined the situation and said "Oh what the hell." He snapped his fingers and the tornado stretched up. So of course it got thinner and closed in on Omi. This time when he touched the barrier instead of bouncing off it, it pulled him into it. He went round and round and round and up and up and then everything went black.

When the tornado stretched, Clay and Dojo could see it from where they were lying. The top of it started slowly curving in their direction. At this point they could see something yellow, black, and red spinning inside it. The whirlwind began falling towards them, then the top part of it hit the ground a few feet away from them, then it straightened out so that the other end came up and became the top part. (Anyone who has ever owned a slinky understands what I'm talking about). The whirlwind slowed, making it so an unconscious Omi could spiral smoothly down. The wind carried Omi gently to the ground like it would an autumn leaf. Then it shrunk few yards down and instead of going slowly round and round began pushing strongly down so that even if Omi awoke he couldn't even raise a hand.

"Dojo," Clay said wonderingly. "Are you sure Master Fung didn't think Raimundo was ready to become a xiaolin apprentice?"

"He probably wasn't _then_. Remember, Raimundo's had a lot more time to practice his element than you guys."

"We know." Then Clay remembered the strange watch Moonskin had and what he said about it. "Dojo, do you know if time here moves at completely different rates?"

Dojo looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"You know, like sometimes a minute in our world can be a day and a half here and sometimes it can change to a different rate."

Dojo didn't respond for a second then he glanced down at the saliva snake's coils and looked back at Clay. "In case you didn't see, I tried to shrug. Anyway, you're very close. The time rate between here and our world only changes if you're traveling. Like here it could be a day for every fifteen minutes there, then it could be a half hour there for every week where Master F-"

Dojo stopped talking abruptly. His eyes got wide. He looked at Omi, then in the direction he had come from and shuddered.

"Dojo? What is it?" Clay asked.

"Do you know if anyone else besides Silvertongue is over there?"

"There's another boy named Moonskin. And Kimiko and a boy called Rustfoot went in there awhile ago. Why?"

"Silvertongue's got us pinned down like helpless butterflies right where he wants us and he's not back yet. So he's probably going to help his guys bring her down. Let's hope she can hold them off long enough for someone to come by and help us."

Actually, Kimiko was having a hard time just keeping Rustfoot from bringing her down. This kid was very strong, very fast, and was wielding sharp teeth and claws that could possibly be poisonous. She tried using the Star Hanabi on him a couple times, but even though it was just two words it took too long to say them. When she tried, he came way too close for comfort to driving his long nails into her skin. It was tough fighting alone.

Finally she somehow managed to kick him hard in the stomach, sending him sprawled on the ground. When she kicked him, something fell out of the large front pocket on his hooded sweatshirt.

Kimiko gasped. "My backpack!"

She reached down to grab it. Then she heard a crunch above her. She looked up and let out a soft yelp. Rustfoot's nails were sunk into the tree trunk behind her. Apparently he had lunged at her and missed when she bent down to get her backpack. Kimiko bolted while Rustfoot struggled to pull free. She ran and ran, making turns and twists now and then to loose him in case he got free. After awhile she slowed to a jog when she decided she was safe. But then she heard a different set of racing footsteps and Rustfoot's familiar heavy breathing. She quickened her pace, going faster than before and mentally kicked herself. He was a **werewolf**. She couldn't lose him. He could hear her, smell her-

She stopped. Stretched out in front of her was a muddy pond. There was no time to go around. He would reach her, the only option was to fight. Wait. She realized the pond may not be an obstacle, but her opportunity to escape. Kimiko dove in. The pond was shallow and there was plenty of gooey mud on the bottom. She rolled in it, covering herself to disguise her scent. She could hear Rustfoot coming closer. She quickly crawled to the bank and lay down, watching and waiting for him. Rustfoot appeared. At the last minute Kimiko covered her mouth and nose to keep her breathing silent and tried to ignore the bugs.

Rustfoot knew Kimiko was here, but couldn't pinpoint where. He perked his ears up, but all he could hear was the bugs buzzing. He sniffed the air, but could only smell mud. He growled as he looked on the pond. "Where are you, you filthy slut?"

He waded out into the middle still sniffing for her. He paid no attention to the swarming bugs until one flew up his nostril. He cursed and snorted and slapped at all the other bugs around him until he got it out and then he ran out of the pond. When he got rid of the remaining bugs, he sighed in defeat. "Smart girl,"

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Dammit, Moonskin, you were supposed to go for her. Of all the orders to go against . . . wait a minute."

His hand dropped and he grinned darkly. Rustfoot reached into his front pocket and pulled out a palm pilot. Kimiko's eyes narrowed. How was that going to help him in this situation? He fiddled around with it, then mouthed "Three, two, one-"

'_I am such an idiot!'_ was the first thought that passed through Kimiko's mind when her cell phone went off.


	20. Captured

About four seconds after her cell phone went off, Kimiko was jerked to her feet and all the mud covering her was blown off by a huge gust that felt like it came from a giant hairdryer in front of her. When the gust stopped, she opened her eyes to see that Rustfoot had not moved at all and his gaze was fixed on a point behind her. She turned around and her eyes immediately narrowed. Raimundo was smirking at her. "You know, most people actually _learn_ from their mistakes in the past."

Kimiko pounced at him, but her attempt was foiled when she met the wind barrier between them. Surprised, she felt the wall to be sure of what it was. Then she looked back at Raimundo and her blood boiled when she saw his smirk had broadened. She pounded her fists and feet against the barrier with all her might, but couldn't get though. "Pound all you want, but you might as well save your energy." Raimundo told her. "Omi's already tried to break out of this."

Abruptly his smirk vanished, was replaced by a pondering expression, and his gaze fell to the ground. "Of course, the particular one he was in had to be strong enough to keep out a ferocious bloodthirsty vampire."

Kimiko's pounding stopped. She was right. The bat _was_ a vampire. So Moonskin had to be the bat. Raimundo's words sunk in and she took hope in them that Omi hadn't been harmed. But part of what he had said confused her. Why would Raimundo want to protect Omi?

Raimundo glanced back up at her and smiled unpleasantly. "What do you think, Kim? You think this one's strong enough to keep out a ferocious bloodthirsty werewolf?"

He looked up behind her. When she turned to see what he what he was looking at, she shrieked in surprise and fear. Rustfoot was standing right in front of her, no longer in his half-wolf, half-human form, but in his complete wolf shape. His now golden green eyes flashed hungrily and he reared up as if to pin her underneath him. Kimiko screamed and covered her head with her arms. But as the wind barrier stopped her from attacking Raimundo, it blocked him from harming her. Kimiko realized what had happened and she ran her hands along the perimeter of the barrier. She understood then that she was trapped. Trapped, but safe for now. She wondered about that, then heard Raimundo chuckle behind her. "Aww, who's afraid of the big bad wolf?" Raimundo mocked.

Kimiko slowly turned her head in his direction. "Bite me." She snarled.

Raimundo just grinned as if amused at her response. "No thanks, but I'm sure Rustfoot or Moonskin would be only too happy to accept your offer."

Rustfoot made a weird noise that sounded like a chortle. Raimundo looked her up and down. "Although they may want you to wash first before they touch you. I personally think it's a big improvement compared to the gunk you usually wear."

Kimiko flushed. She knew she looked disgustingly filthy. Then she cursed herself for being self-conscious at a time like this and again for letting Rai's insult get to her. Before she could think of a clever retort, Rai walked around her and Rustfoot and over to where Rustfoot was recently standing, where his clothing now lay. He bent over and began to gather up the clothes. Rustfoot went to him with and gave a questioning whine. Raimundo stood and faced him with his arms full. "You remember how you were supposed to take the monk and Moonskin was supposed to take her?"

Rustfoot nodded. Raimundo rubbed his forehead in an exasperated way. "Okay, no one's in trouble, but was it your idea to switch so you could get revenge for that scrape or Moonskin's because of his grudge?"

Kimiko couldn't see if Rustfoot responded or not, but he must've because Raimundo's hand dropped and he sighed. "If that kid wasn't dead already, I'd kill him."

Kimiko couldn't believe it. "You actually paired us up with your lackeys ahead of time?" she screamed at him. "How weak are you?"

They both ignored her. Raimundo kept talking. "Anyway, thanks to the stunt you two pulled, Moonskin got drenched. He's okay considering, but it'd be great if you could go get him and take him back to the caravan. 'Kay?" Then Raimundo held out the clothes. "And I'd appreciate it if you were a clothed human when you get there."

Rustfoot nodded and opened his jaws to accept the garments, but Raimundo abruptly pulled them back. "Oh wait, one last thing. The attack on the Dwellers is off."

Rustfoot whirled around to face Kimiko so suddenly that she jumped. He snarled angrily at her. "Cool it, Rustfoot. It's not because of her and the others. We got a special surprise visitor back at the caravan."

Rustfoot looked back at him. Raimundo held out the attire again. "It's important, okay? You'll see when you get back. Just go."

Rustfoot took the clothing and ran off.

Raimundo watched him go, then turned to Kimiko. "Well, let's get this show on the road."

And with that, he swiftly reached through the wind barrier and grabbed the back of Kimiko's shirt. The wall of wind collapsed, piled underneath Raimundo and lifted him and Kimiko into the air so suddenly, Kimiko felt they had left her stomach behind. She tried to hit him, but Raimundo was just out of reach.

Once they were high above the forest, Rai shot off toward the caravan like a shooting star. Wind whistled past Kimiko's ears and her eyes watered from the speed. Then the ride was over. Raimundo threw Kimiko to the ground. The next thing she knew, a strong breeze was blowing down on her preventing her from getting up. She looked around the area for something that might be useful to get her out of this and her eyes fell upon Omi. Her heart sank when she saw that he was in the same situation as she was, as well as unconscious. Then she noticed Clay. He was trapped by a rope of substance that looked like water, only thicker and sort of yellowish.

"You alright?" he asked.

She nodded at him. Clay looked as though he was about to say something, but then there was a loud thumping sound that turned both their heads in its direction. Raimundo was banging on the door of the caravan. "Daggereyes! C'mon, wake up! Wake-"

The door opened. Daggereyes's voice was groggy and grumpy. "Silvertongue, did someone die? Did someone lose control? Are you or Padfoot mortally wounded? Did Moonskin get a sharp tree branch stabbed through his shoulder? 'Cause if not, I'm going back to bed."

"It doesn't matter if you get a good night's sleep, Daggereyes. The attack on the Dwellers is off."

There was a pause. Daggereyes asked "Are you shittin' me?"

Kimiko was unexpectedly relieved that Omi was unconscious. When things were normal at the temple, it was like a taboo among the chosen ones to swear. Kimiko thought part of it was because if Master Fung or Dojo or a monk heard them, they would get in serious trouble. But mainly she thought it was because they didn't want Omi to hear them and try to use the curses himself. He was bad enough with slang.

Raimundo rubbed the back of his neck. "Look, don't freak out, but we kinda got an unexpected guest."

"Who?" Daggereye's voice became hard. "Tell me it's not that scum-of-the-earth snake."

Something very squirmy and green caught Kimiko's eye. Her eyes widened when she saw Dojo's head sticking out of the watery substance. At first she smiled and opened her mouth to call out to him, but then she frowned. He was shaking so hard and looked so uncomfortable you would think that fifty shen-gong-wu had just revealed themselves at the same time.

Daggereyes poked her head out the door and stared directly at Dojo. Her face was expressionless and her sunglasses made it impossible for her eyes to give any feelings or thoughts away. But Dojo must've guessed something because then he looked as if seventy-five shen-gong-wu had activated at the same time. Daggereyes headed for him, but Raimundo grabbed and blocked her. "Whoa, whoa, can you just hold that thought until the guys get here?"

"If I wait for them, they'll kill him right away." Daggereyes replied coolly.

"No. If I know them they'll drag the death out as long as possible. But that's not the point. Just wa-"

He was interrupted by a rustling in the branches. Raimundo's eyes got wide and he ran over to the source of the noise, his hands searching his pockets. After a second he pulled out a fist clenching something. The moment Rustfoot and Moonskin emerged from the trees in their human forms, Raimundo brought his fist level to his mouth, opened his hand, and blew. A fine white dust flew from his palm onto Moonskin and Rustfoot, coating them both. Moonskin started coughing and clapped a hand over his nose and mouth. Rustfoot sneezed and waved a hand in front of his face to clear away the dust. "Why the fuck did you do that?" he demanded.

Kimiko was starting to hope Omi didn't regain consciousness until they got away from this group. Raimundo held up his hands defensively. "Look guys, sorry. But can you just move the prisoners-"

"What the fuck is that?" Moonskin said abruptly. Rustfoot followed his glance. His eyes narrowed when they fell on Dojo. He stormed over to him and Clay and raised a hand as if to slap him. Dojo flinched and braced himself. But Rustfoot's hand never came down. Rustfoot looked at it as though puzzled at why it hadn't. He held in front of his face and examined his nails. His eyes grew so wide, Clay could clearly see the shock, anger, and fear that filled them. Rustfoot sent a look of death at Raimundo. "I am going to kill you." He snarled.

Raimundo sighed. "Get a grip, Rustfoot. It's only temporary."

"You tricked me. This was why you told me to come as a human."

"Yes. Rustfoot, believe me I understand what you're feeling right now, but I want the dragon physically unharmed and I knew you didn't have that kind of willpower. I'm sorry."

"Not as sorry as you're going to be when I get my ability to change back."

Clay frowned and asked without thinking of the possible consequences "Change?"

"He's a werewolf." Kimiko blurted. It dawned on her that Clay didn't know that the wolf and Rustfoot were the same. "Remember, you saw him in his full wolf form once in the trench."

She shot a look at Moonskin. "And remember the huge bat thing? I think that was Moonskin. I think he's a vampire."

"Correct." Moonskin said as though it was as normal as saying that you were left-handed or something.

Then Kimiko looked at Daggereyes, who's face was still expressionless. "And I don't know what she is, but she can't be human either."

Daggereye's face didn't change, but her voice was angry. "For your information, I'm just as human as you, just . . . ." Her voice broke off.

Raimundo walked to where Dojo and Clay were lying, reached into one of the saliva coils trapping Dojo, grabbed onto him, and pulled him out, dripping with spit. Dojo flailed helplessly, his eyes wide with terror. "What do you think you're doing?" Clay asked angrily.

Raimundo ignored him and held up his other hand. Wind tugged the Orb of Tornami from Omi's hand and sent it right into Raimundo's. He closed his hand around it, activated it, and rinsed the spit off of Dojo. Then he aimed it at Kimiko and rinsed the mud off her. During this Moonskin went into the caravan and came back out with some rope. He reached for Omi, but the wind pushed his hand away. He groaned. "Silvertongue, can you turn off the wind?"

The wind pinning Omi stopped. Moonskin grabbed Omi and tied him up before you could say 'Don't you dare touch him'. Then he dropped him on the ground and started for Kimiko, but Raimundo said "No, it'll be easier if I do it."

Wind abruptly pulled Kimiko to her feet and began spinning her round and round and round like a top at full speed. Kimiko shut her eyes to keep them from watering, clenched her teeth to keep from screaming, and willed herself not to hurl. She felt something somehow being tied around her shoulders and then wrap around her torso and arms and legs. Once she was practically immobile, the wind stopped and she fell to the ground so dizzy it was hard to tell which way was up. "That was quick." She heard Moonskin comment.

Kimiko groaned. "Go to hell."

"Go to where, Kimiko?" a familiar and innocent voice asked.

Kimiko groaned again and mentally kicked herself. Of all the times for Omi to wake up . . .

"What has happened here?" Omi asked, taking in his surroundings. "Why am I bound? Kimiko, Clay, are you both alright?" Then the squirming green thing in Raimundo's grasp caught his attention. He gasped. "Dojo!"

"Take 'em inside." Raimundo said.

"What about the cowboy?" Daggereyes asked.

"What _about_ the cowboy?"

"Silvertongue, I will not have your spittle all over my caravan's floor."

Kimiko grimaced at the realization of what Clay was trapped in. "Are you serious? Geez Rai, that is so sick. Wait, there is no way you could make that mu- Oh my gosh!"

An end of the saliva rope that was by Clay's head lifted itself up. She realized with a sick feeling that the thing was alive and could see by the shape it was formed into a snake. "Great ghost of Dashi!" Omi exclaimed.

The followers looked at Omi as if _he_ was the one using disgusting language and Daggereyes flipped him off. Luckily, Omi's attention was on the snake so he didn't see. The snake's coils started to wriggle. As it did, Clay felt his trick rope being pulled out of his pocket and being tied to his calf. Then it stopped and spiraled off Clay's body, tying him up as it went. When it was finally all the way off, Clay was as immobile as Kimiko and Omi, as well as soaked from the spit. "Okay, we're good to go." Raimundo said. "You guys take 'em in the caravan."

Moonskin moved for Omi, but Raimundo stopped him and pointed at Kimiko. Moonskin's arms went limp, but he went to her, threw her over his shoulder so she couldn't struggle, and took her into the caravan. Next thing Kimiko knew she was tied to one of three chairs in the middle of the room. Kimiko tried to thrash about, but the knots were tied too well and the chair was heavy. Realizing an escape attempt was futile, she abandoned this activity and looked around. Against the walls were shelves and cabinets full of bottles, jars filled with unknown materials, boxes, books, pieces of paper, and odd-looking gadgets. In a far corner was a pile of blankets and a small wooden table. Kimiko's eyes widened when she saw the almost fixed Reversing Mirror and its remaining pieces lying on it.

Her view of it was blocked when Clay was plopped into one of the chairs next to her. Omi was placed in the other. That's when Kimiko noticed a fresh red stain on some rope covering Omi's arm. It looked a lot like blood. She cast a quick glance at Moonskin and realized why he wanted to carry Omi and why Raimundo wouldn't let him. She hoped that the rope was enough to stop the bleeding for now. She was about to ask Omi about the cut, when a strip of cloth went over her mouth to prevent her from speaking and someone tied the ends at the back of her head tightly. Moonskin emerged from behind her and did the same to Omi. Kimiko looked at Clay and sure enough, he was gagged too.

"Okay, that's done." Rustfoot said once the warriors were all tied and gagged. He pointed at Dojo who was still squirming in Raimundo's grasp. "Now explain why we can't rip the gecko's lungs out."

"Oh yeah. Daggereyes, can I talk to you outside please?"

"Okay."

"_What_! How come she gets to-"

"Rustfoot, calm down and think. Why would he be out here in the middle of nowhere alone? Oh and while we're out, both of you keep a sharp eye on the prisoners."

And with that he and Daggereyes were out the door. Rustfoot growled. "Sometimes that Silvertongue just makes me wanna rip his forked tongue out of his mouth and shove it up his ass."

"Come now, Rustfoot." Moonskin said. "You're a smart guy, you can figure it out."

"Figure what out?"

"Did you even listen to what he said? Just think about it, why would the dragon be over here all by his lonesome?"

Rustfoot scoffed. "The cowardly wimp wouldn't."

There was a pause. Then as quick as a light switch, realization filled Rustfoot's face. "Oh shit!"

"Yeah."

"He thinks that . . ."

"Yep."

"He wants to see if they. . ."

"Uh-huh."

"And he wants Daggereyes to . . ."

"You got it."

The apprentices exchanged confused glances. What the heck were they talking about? And what did Raimundo plan on doing with Dojo? Suddenly a little girl's cry of distress came from outside that made their blood chill. Not because it was high-pitched, but because they knew what made that sound. It was what Dojo sounded like when he was screaming.

"NO! PLEASE SILVERTONGUE! NOT THAT, ANYTHING BUT THAT. NO NO NO NO! PLEASE, I SWEAR, ANYTHING YOU WANT TO KNOW, YOU'LL GET AN HONEST ANSWER, JUST DON'T- AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Dojo's tortured screams filled the room. Rustfoot and Moonskin smiled sadistically, obviously taking great pleasure from the noise. The warriors thrashed about, their hearts breaking at the knowledge that a friend needed their help and that there was nothing they could do.


	21. Don't Touch Them

After what seemed like hours, Dojo's screaming finally ceased. Once it did, Moonskin dashed to a cabinet, opened it, and pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil. The door opened and Raimundo and Daggereyes entered. Dojo lay shaking in Raimundo's hand, sobbing into his claws. Omi tried to call out to him, but his gag muffled his voice. Daggereyes's sunglasses were off, but her eyes were closed and she was muttering to herself. Raimundo watched as Moonskin went to her, pressed the pencil and paper into her hands, lead her to the table, swept the mirror and remaining pieces to the edge, and stood aside. Still muttering, Daggereyes smoothed the paper onto the table and began scribbling furiously. Because her back was to the warriors, they couldn't see what was flowing onto the paper or even if Daggereyes had opened her eyes.

Once Raimundo peeked at what she was doing and nodded in approval, he went to the cabinet Moonskin had opened and searched through it. "Now we can do our stuff with the gecko, right?" Rustfoot asked him hopefully.

"Wrong." Raimundo answered, pulling a burlap sack out of the cabinet.

He stuffed Dojo into it, dug into his pocket, took out a handful of dust, held it near his mouth, and blew it into the bag. He whispered something to Dojo as he tied the bag shut with a piece of rope.

Kimiko didn't think she had ever hated Raimundo more than she did at that moment. How dare Raimundo even think of hurting Dojo, the dragon that was almost impossible to hate. She made a silent promise to Dojo and herself that Raimundo was going to pay dearly for the evil things he'd done. Oh boy, when she got free was he ever going pay.

Omi was in shock. Raimundo harming Dojo? Had Raimundo's mind been lost? Or perhaps Dojo hadn't been in as much pain as they thought. Dojo did tend to exaggerate and overreact when he was frightened. Perhaps he wasn't even hurt, just scared badly. Yes, that had to be it. After all, Raimundo harming Dojo? Unthinkable.

Clay was as upset as the others, but something was nagging at the corner of his mind. Several things actually. What _was _Dojo doing out here? And why did he look so terrified when he first saw Raimundo or one of the followers? And why were all the followers so eager to kill him? Come to think of it, Raimundo didn't seem pleased to see Dojo either. Clay remembered how when he had interfered, Raimundo told him that there was something between him and Dojo. But the most harm Dojo could do was sneeze or cough soot at you. What did Dojo do?

Daggereyes had finally stopped scribbling and muttering. She reached into her pocket, pulled out her shades, and slid them on. Raimundo noticed she was finished, wedged the bag between some jars on one of the shelves, and went to her. She snatched up the paper and handed to him. During this transfer, Kimiko was able to see the paper from her seat. It looked like a map. As Raimundo looked it over, his face flooded with confusion and disbelief. "Are you sure that this is right?"

Daggereyes nodded. "I even double-checked."

Raimundo whistled. "They did a good job of coming this far without us knowing."

"Lemme see that." Rustfoot made a grab for the paper, but Raimundo stepped away and held it high over his head. "I dunno if that's a good idea."

"Oh come on. We've gotta know where we're headed too."

"Who said you're coming?"

"You're going alone?" Moonskin asked, surprised. "Silvertongue, that's dangerously foolish, even for you."

"So was swapping opponents, and it was because of that little stunt that I had to do all the work myself."

"You didn't have to get the girl for me." Rustfoot said defensively. "I would have caught her."

"Wait a sec." Daggereyes looked at Moonskin and Rustfoot, grinning crookedly. "You two actually made the switch?"

Silvertongue raised an eyebrow. "You knew?"

"I overheard them talking about it, but I didn't think that they'd be stupid enough to really do it." She looked back at Moonskin and folded her arms across her chest. "And you're calling Silvertongue foolish? Moonskin, the monk was firing _running water_ for crying out loud. Maybe no one told you, but running water repels dead people."

"This is completely off topic." Moonskin snapped. "We're not talking about my mistake, we're talking about Silvertongue going alone to face the enemy."

"Listen." Silvertongue rubbed his face. "First of all, you guys won't be able to change for awhile-"

"We don't necessarily need to be in our second forms to kill, Silvertongue." Moonskin interrupted. "You know that better than anyone."

"Let me finish. It's not that I doubt you and Rustfoot, I mean you're both terrific fighters. Daggereyes, no offense-"

"None taken. I know I can't fight worth beans. Still, people flee in terror when-"

"I know, please let me finish. What I'm saying is that they're going to be ready for you guys this time and if one of you gets caught or injured, everyone else is going to be too busy trying to save their own skins to save you. It'll just be easier to have fewer lives to worry about while I'm fighting."

"Kind of like in chess when all you've got left are your queen, a rook, and a bishop?" Moonskin asked.

"Right. Also someone's gotta watch the prisoners. So could you all just stay here? I'll try and be fast."

Moonskin sighed. "Very well."

Daggereyes shrugged. "I've got no problem staying."

Rustfoot scratched his head. "When you say 'they're going to ready for you', do you mean that they'll be using the right ways to kill us this time?"

"Yeah."

"I'll stay."

"Good. I'll be back as fast as I'm gone."

And he left. But almost as soon as the door closed, he came back in, groaning and rubbing his temples. Rustfoot raised an eyebrow. "Wow. That _was_ incredibly fast. Probably a universal record."

"Did you forget something, Silvertongue?" Daggereyes asked.

"Yes," Silvertongue replied. "I forgot how big a mistake it was to leave you freaks to watch the prisoners."

"Why is it a big mistake?"

"Because every time I leave at least one of you in a room with a tied up monk, when I come back they're dead."

This comment made the apprentices' feelings of anger, shock, and curiosity vanish and be replaced with anxiety. There was a moment of awkward silence. Then Daggereyes looked at Moonskin and Rustfoot and said something that didn't help the warriors feel safe. "You know, he has a solid point."

"Yeah, yeah." Rustfoot held up his hands. "So how do we handle this?"

"You're certain we can't come with you?" Moonskin asked.

"Someone has to watch them."

There was another silence. Daggereyes broke it again. "Look, how about while we're watching the warriors we watch each other. I'll watch Moonskin, he can watch Rustfoot, and Rustfoot can watch me."

"That's a good idea." Rustfoot agreed. "And if one gets ripped to shreds in the process, the two left can focus on each other."

Silvertongue didn't seem satisfied with that. "You all promise not to touch any of them unless one escapes? And even then you'll just do what you have to do to catch them and afterwards continue to leave them alone until I get back?"

The warriors were all puzzled by the odd way Raimundo was speaking. The followers looked like they were too.

"Sure, we promise."

"Okay."

"Alright."

Silvertongue spat on his hand and held it out, apparently wanting one of them to shake it. The followers looked almost fearfully at it. "You cannot be serious." Rustfoot said.

"Do you want to keep your promises?"

"Silvertongue, can't you trust us to keep our words on our own?" Daggereyes sounded hurt.

"Normally yes, but not when it comes to things like this. Look, I've really got to go, so can you all just seal the deal already?"

There was a reluctant pause. Then Moonskin slowly reached out and shook. Afterwards Silvertongue spat on his hand again and held it out. Rustfoot rolled his eyes and grasped his hand. Silvertongue repeated the action he had performed moments ago. Daggereyes stared at the hand a minute before hesitantly taking it.

Silvertongue grinned. "Okay then. We're good. See you guys later." Then he opened the door and disappeared, wind pulling the door closed after him.

Clay noted the surprised looks on Kimiko's and Omi's faces. He made a mental note to tell them about how the shen-gong-wu had affected Raimundo. That is, if the followers kept their word. For some reason, he felt that they would.

For a moment, everything was completely still. Then Rustfoot asked the question that was on everyone's mind. "Now what?"

Moonskin shrugged. "You heard Silvertongue. Nobody touches the Xiaolins until he gets back unless they make a break for it." Moonskin reached into his pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. "You guys up for a little Thirty-one?"

"Always." Rustfoot sat down cross-legged on the floor.

Daggereyes sat across from him. "Deal me in."

Moonskin sat down, shuffled the cards, and began dealing.

After a few minutes of watching them play, the apprentices started to relax a bit. Making no sudden movements that would attract the followers' attention, they casually glanced around to try and figure out a way to escape. But each of their plans were shot down by some obstacle. The knots and ropes were too tight, the chairs were too heavy, the door too well guarded, there were no shen-gong-wu in sight except for the Reversing Mirror which was broken, and to bottom it on, all the warriors' movements were being watched.

'_It's top it off, Omi.'_

That too.

After what felt like an hour or so, a gleam at the corner of Moonskin's mouth caught Kimiko's eye. She squinted the see what it was. But the gleam trickled down his chin and lowered itself to the floor like a spider on a thread. Then more seeped through his thin lips and followed the first. He was drooling. He didn't seem to realize it though. Daggereyes and Rustfoot did after awhile, but didn't say anything. Omi and Clay noticed too, but couldn't say anything. Soon there was a small puddle on the floor. Rustfoot finally spoke up. "Hey, Moonskin. Are you by any chance hungry at all?"

When Moonskin opened his mouth to answer, more saliva flowed out and his reply was dampened beyond regonition. He clamped a hand over his mouth and his eyes got wide. Humiliated, he looked down at the puddle of spittle. Daggereyes cast an annoyed glance at Rustfoot. "Rustfoot, don't be an asshole."

Kimiko was almost wishing Omi would fall asleep or something so he couldn't hear the followers' potty mouths. He might assume they were using slang and try to add them to his vocabulary, not realizing the offense they would cause or how rude they would be.

Daggereyes got up, walked over to a cabinet, and fished out some rags. She threw a couple over to Moonskin. He wiped off his chin and mouth, then knelt to clean up the puddle. "Sorry Moonskin." Daggereyes said. "We thought you would catch yourself eventually."

"Maybe you did." Rustfoot snickered. "I was hoping he'd drown the monks."

"What did I just say?"

"Yeah, don't be an asshole. Sorry."

Rustfoot tossed his cards over his shoulder, got up, and to the apprentices' surprise and Kimiko's horror, started taking off his clothes. "I'll go grab you some dinner, Moonskin. Call me if there's a loose monk."

He had just stripped down to his boxers, when Daggereyes noticed the horrified expression on Kimiko's face. "Rustfoot, maybe for the girl's sake you could take those off outside."

"It's not like there's anything to see." Moonskin muttered, earning him a whack on the side of the head.

"You should talk." Rustfoot retorted. "Alright, I'm going."

He started for the door, but abruptly froze. He slowly raised a hand to his face and looked at his nails. Kimiko realized that he was trying to change into a wolf, but whatever Raimundo sprayed him with was still blocking his effort. Rustfoot turned back to the others with a pained expression. "I hate it when Silvertongue does this. I always feel like half of me is being repressed."

"It feels that way because it is." Moonskin said.

Daggereyes turned back to the cabinet and rooted around it, audibly muttering to herself. "Where did I put that? Did I put it in here or was that the cleaning salve? I put it under the extra blankets, right? Ah, here it is."

She closed the cabinet and went to Rustfoot, holding a jar of powder. She screwed off the lid and took out a handful of its contents. "Rustfoot, could you kneel?"

Rustfoot took a step back. "What is that stuff?"

Instead of replying, Daggereyes grabbed Rustfoot, forced him to the floor, and held him there while she sprinkled the powder over him. When she was done, she helped him back to his feet and screwed the jar shut. "Try changing again."

Rustfoot held a hand in front of his face again and this time his nails grew three inches. Moonskin, who had just finished cleaning, froze. Rustfoot's eyes grew twice their size as he looked at Daggereyes. "You made an antidote?"

"Don't tell Silvertongue that you know. He's not gonna like that. If you need this stuff, I keep it under the extra blankets. But we don't have a lot of this, so it's only to be used for emergencies, okay?"

Rustfoot gave her a quick hug. "You're a lifesaver. Thanks." And he ran out the door.

Daggereyes offered some of the powder to Moonskin before she put it back in the cabinet, but he shook his head. "I don't feel the need to change every time I can like he does, but thanks."

When Daggereyes's back was turned, he gazed at Omi longingly. Omi felt his body tremble in fear from the gaze, but could not identify why. There was something in Moonskin's eyes, something frightening that almost resembled hunger, desire, and pain, but with something more, something-

"Moonskin, you're drooling again." Daggereyes spoke up.

Moonskin quickly wiped his chin and looked away from Omi, seemingly ashamed.

"Moonskin, I know what you're thinking and don't. Even if you didn't make that deal with Silvertongue, he'd know by the marks on their necks."

"I know." Moonskin whispered.

"You know, if you really can't wait for Rustfoot to come back you can have some of my blood."

"Thank you, but no." Moonskin replied a little too quickly. "You donated recently and it wouldn't be fair." He sighed. "I wish Silvertongue hadn't called off the attack on the dwellers. It seems ages since I've had human blood."

"Maybe Silvertongue'll bring you back a body or something. Hey, wanna play war to take your mind of your hunger?"

"Why not?"

After five minutes of the apprentices useless struggling and plotting and Moonskin and Daggereyes slapping down cards, Rustfoot returned in his human form carrying a dead turkey. Moonskin stopped playing as soon as he walked in and looked at the turkey the same way he had looked at Omi. Rustfoot tossed it at him. "Bon appetite."

No sooner had Rustfoot spoken than Moonskin ripped the feathers off the turkey's neck and opened his mouth wide. The warriors watched in amazement as Moonskin's canines grew about an inch longer. He sank them into the neck, sucking noisily and closing his eyes in pleasure. The moment his fangs entered the carcass, Kimiko shut her eyes, Clay turned a sickly green, and Omi, being the curious clueless monk he was, kept staring in astonishment.

As Moonskin drank, Rustfoot got dressed and Daggereyes was rushing around the caravan getting out jars filled with clear fluids, a pair of leather gloves, and a bloodstained thick table cloth. She took the mirror and its remains off the table, dumped them on a shelf, then threw the table cloth over the table, and set the jars on it, opening them all afterwards.

Finally when it looked as though Omi's eyes where as big as they could get, Moonskin's noises became dry sounding and he detached his mouth from the turkey, his face covered in blood. He hastily licked it off, ignoring Omi's rude staring and Clay's look of disgust. When the noises stopped Kimiko opened her eyes. Moonskin got up, took the bloodless fowl over to Daggereyes, and laid it on the table in front of her. "Thanks." She told him as she pulled on the gloves. "Hey, Rustfoot, you wanna take over for me in war while I do this?"

"Sure." He and Moonskin plopped onto the floor and resumed the game.

The apprentices watched as Daggereyes searched her pockets until she pulled out a switchblade, flicked it open, and began sawing away at the turkey. Again, due to having her back to the warriors, they were unable to see what she was doing. Then her hand went from her work to over a jar and she dropped in a shriveled heart. Kimiko looked away. Clay willed not to vomit for if he did, the gag would've only made him swallow it. Omi, who apparently didn't understand exactly what Daggereyes was doing, continued watching her remove bones and internal organs.

Kimiko tried to think of something else, but couldn't help wondering what they would want with the body parts. After all, it wasn't like they were important or sacred or anything. They came from a turkey for crying out loud.

Rustfoot paused the game for a moment and looked at the door. "Is it me, or is Silvertongue taking a little too long?"

Moonskin shrugged. "He's probably just having trouble finding the right time to strike."

"What if he got caught?"

"You are talking about Silvertongue, right?"

"You don't think we should go after him?"

"I'm sure he's fine."

"What if he got lost? Hey, Daggereyes, are you sure you got the right directions?"

Daggereyes didn't reply. She kept at her work. Then everyone, even Omi, started to notice that she wasn't cutting. She was just stabbing repeatedly.

"Daggereyes?"

She stuck the switchblade in the turkey once more, slammed her hands onto the table making everyone jump, and bowed her head. "I - I'm sorry. I can't do this. I can't friggin' stand it. I – I'm trying to resist, but - Silvertongue was right. This was a huge mistake. I can't do this."

She turned with a solemn expression, pulled off her gloves, dropped them on the table, picked up the switchblade, and started walking toward Omi. Omi's heart almost stopped. He was unable to protect himself against anything she would do. What would she do? He knew that Dojo seemed unharmed after Daggereyes and Raimundo were though with him, but from what?

Daggereyes stepped behind Omi's chair. Omi closed his eyes tightly and braced himself, but felt nothing. He just heard the sound of something being sawed.

"Ummmm, Daggereyes?" Rustfoot asked. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Loophole." She breathed. "We can't touch them unless they escape so-"

Omi felt his binds loosen, then leave him. His chair abruptly lurched forward, throwing him to the floor. He tried to get up, but suddenly found himself on the floor on his back with Daggereyes above him pinning down his arms and legs.

"Daggereyes, no!" Moonskin yelled. "We don't know why Silvertongue wants them alive and he might-"

"SILVERTONGUE CAN GO TO HELL!" Daggereyes screamed at him. "I'VE GOT A FRIGGIN' RIGHT TO KNOW! I HAVE TO KNOW! NOW AND THEN I'D LIKE TO FEEL SAFE IN MY OWN HOME! HOW ABOUT YOU TWO? YOU FEEL OKAY HAVING HIM HERE?"

Omi didn't understand. How was this going to make her feel safe? And he was just tied up. What harm could he have done? And what was she so desperate to know?

When neither Moonskin nor Rustfoot replied, she shook her head violently until her sunglasses flew off, hit the floor, and slid to the side of the room. Moonskin moved as if to stop her from doing something, but then seemed to change his mind. Rustfoot tilted his head, crossed his arms, and watched. They weren't going to help Omi.

When the sunglasses came off, Omi thought that it was nice to finally see her eyes. Those glasses were really bothering him. But when she looked down at him and he did see her dark green eyes, he saw something that made him swiftly change his mind. At that moment, he would've done almost anything for her to put the sunglasses back on. He gasped in horror at what he saw and quickly looked away. Daggereyes's elbows relieved her hands of the job of holding down Omi's arms so she could grab his face and pull it to face hers. "LOOK AT ME!" She yelled, sticking her face right up in his. "LOOK AT ME!"

Omi shut his eyelids, but Daggereyes pried them open, so he had no choice but to look deeply into her eyes.


	22. Not Good

Hello. I am Iorek. We are quite sorry for the delay of this chapter, but because of a unique mental torture system that Griffin kid insists on doing daily that she calls 'geometry homework' she hasn't had a lot of time to write. No responsibility falls to me whatsoever. Oh yes, and we are both grateful for the reviews. I apologize for my author's tendency to forget saying that. She really is appreciative.

_angel hakusho_: Don't be so quick so quick to poke her eyes out. You may feel different later on.

_darklite-spirit_: Omi can't run due to the fact that a person three times his size is on top of him and he is looking at- well that comes later.

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Kimiko was struggling so hard against her ropes, she had managed to get her chair to rock despite its heaviness. She was so angry, she was actually seeing red. She loved Omi like he was her own little brother and was not about to stand for this whore to do this. She had no idea what was going on, but knew it couldn't be good. Soon after a bit of tongue and lip motion, she was able to slide the gag off her mouth enough so she could speak and began screaming at the top of her lungs for Daggereyes to stop, using language so awful it probably would have made the followers blush. However Rustfoot and Moonskin were so busy watching Daggereyes that they hardly noticed Kimiko in spite of her impressive display of anger and Daggereyes was too focused on Omi to even hear her.

Clay was almost relieved the position of Kimiko's chair made it so she could only see Daggereyes's back because Clay was certain that if she saw Omi's face, she would've busted through the ropes and killed the followers single-handedly. It wouldn't have been a bad thing, but he didn't want to see one of his best friends commit murder. Unfortunately from where Clay was sitting he could see Omi's face and it was breaking his heart. The little guy was just slightly struggling as if part of him didn't want to escape and part of him wanted to desperately get away. His expression was a mix of pain, fear, disgust, and shame. Tears trickled out of the corners of his eyes, eyes that were trying so hard to close. Clay wished he had at least half of Kimiko's temper so he might be able to break through the ropes and help Omi. Not that he wasn't trying, but it just wasn't enough.

Finally Daggereyes let go of Omi's eyelids and got off him. Omi's hands clapped over his face and he began sobbing deeply into them, then he rolled onto his side, curled up into a ball. Kimiko stopped screaming and looked down at Omi, concern and worry for her friend washing away her anger. "Omi?" She said softly. "What happened? Omi?" But Omi simply continued to weep and did not acknowledge that he even heard her.

Daggereyes stood still, gazing intently down at Omi, her face betraying no emotion. After Rustfoot and Moonskin had observed Omi bawling on the floor, they looked at her curiously. "Well? What did you see?"

Clay was wondering what he meant by that when he remembered something Daggereyes had said that made his blood run cold. When he had captured her in their world and asked her who she was, she told him that she'd tell him, but would have to pick apart his mind and soul. What if she wasn't trying to freak him out? What if by looking into someone's eyes she could really do that? Would Omi and Dojo be . . . .

"I-I didn't mean t-to."

Everyone looked at the abrupt speaker. Omi's sobbing had lessened and now he was choking out the sentence repeatedly. "I d-didn't me-mean t-to. I-I did-n't mea-mean to. I di-didn't m-mean t-to. I-I did-didn't mean-" His voice broke off started to sob heavily again.

Everyone stared at him for awhile in silence. Not even Kimiko spoke. Then Rustfoot cleared his throat. "Hello? Daggereyes? What. Did. You. See."

Daggereyes continued looking at Omi. After a moment she spoke. "I think Silvertongue wants these ones alive . . . . because he hasn't made up his mind about them yet."

Her words confused everyone who was sitting in the room. "Umm, could you tell us what you mean by that?" Moonskin asked.

"Not really. But Silvertongue's got a right to want them to live, that's all I'm gonna say."

Daggereyes's gaze finally left Omi. She went to the wall where she had tossed her sunglasses, picked them up, and slid them on. Then after she picked up the gloves and the knife she had dropped on the floor and pulled the gloves on, she walked back to the table and resumed her work with the turkey. Rustfoot looked at her, then at Omi, then back at her, then back at Omi, and then back at Daggereyes, this time his face bearing an annoyed expression. "Hey, Daggereyes? Aren't you going to put him back?"

"You know I can never get all the coils snug."

Rustfoot looked as if he were waiting for more of a response, then sighed. "Oh sure Daggereyes. Moonskin and I would be more than happy to tie him back up for you. Thank you for _asking _so nicely."

Kimiko knew this was a selfish thing to ask considering the distressed state Omi was in and what he had just been through, but now that he was free he could kick the followers' butts and get them out of here. But he would have to sober up quickly to do so. "Omi?" She called again. "Omi?"

But he seemed to be crying too hard to hear her. Kimiko raised her voice a little, but tried to keep a patient, soothing tone. "Omi? Omi, please answer me. Omi, can you at least look at me? Omi please-mmph!"

Rustfoot had gotten up and tied her gag back on, this time swiftly stuffing another piece of cloth into her mouth before securing the other one. She started to struggle and he slapped hard her across the face. That stunned her long enough for him to step behind her chair and tighten the ropes until her back was flat against the wood. The ropes were so taut, the most movement she could do from the neck down was breathe.

Then he stepped back in front of her, put his hand underneath her chin, and forced her to look up at him. At first he looked angry, then the corners of his mouth twitched upward a little like he was trying hard not to smile, then he gave up, chuckled and shook his head. "You have got to be one of the toughest, most stubborn kick-ass bitches I have ever met in my life. And that's saying a lot considering the werewolf bitches I know."

Kimiko's eyes were blazing with rage. She wanted to tell him to stop swearing or she'd pull his lip over his head, that he shouldn't call girls bitches even if they were werewolves, and if Omi was hurt he and the others were going to regret the day they were born. She also wanted to kick him in the shins for slapping her. Being unable to do any of that now, she settled on doing it when she got free. Occupied with her anger and thoughts, she didn't notice that Moonskin was kneeling beside Omi, rolling Omi's sleeve up away from the place on his arm where he was bleeding, and extending his fangs.

Luckily Clay did notice. He squirmed and tried to shout, but the gag muffled his voice. Still it was enough to get some attention, but not understanding what the problem was, all Rustfoot did was tighten Clay's ropes as well. Daggereyes looked over her shoulder to see what the noise was about and did a double take when Moonskin caught her eye.

"No!" She leaped and tackled away from Omi just when he was about to sink his teeth into the wound.

Moonskin blinked as if surprised to find her on top of him. "What did you do that for?"

"We're not supposed to touch them, remember?"

"You got to do your thing."

"That was different. I don't physically hurt my victims."

"You still hurt them. Very badly. You can be more harmful than Rustfoot and I put together."

"Sometimes, anyway." Rustfoot said as dragged the still crying Omi to his chair, hauled him onto it, and started to tie him up. "It really depends on who you're doing. You know that, Moonskin. Besides, Silvertongue's going to notice what you do to any of these guys."

Rustfoot had tied Omi down to his elbows and was trying to tie Omi's forearms to his sides, but Omi was extremely reluctant to uncover his face. After Rustfoot gave his arms a couple fair tugs, he started to pull roughly.

"Rustfoot, you can tie him as he is, just leave him like that. Please." Daggereyes said softly.

"Silvertongue's going to notice. He'll know what you did."

"He's also going to notice how puffy his eyes are if you take his arms down. One way or another he'll know. It won't matter what we do. Just leave him."

Rustfoot stared at Daggereyes for a moment, then sighed and tied Omi's forearms to his chest. Suddenly his head snapped up erect, his eyes wide and pupil's dilated. His ears molded into their wolf shape, each hair on them raised and alert. His nostrils were flared as though he was trying to get as much air into them as possible.

"Rustfoot?" Moonskin asked warily. "What's the matter?"

"Shhh."

Everyone and everything went silent after this simple little word. Even Omi's sobbing stopped except for a couple of gasps occasionally. It made Kimiko, Clay, and by the looks of it Daggereyes and Moonskin very uncomfortable. Kimiko wanted to move or try to talk or something, but was almost afraid to. After a few moments Rustfoot whispered a reply to Moonskin's question. "Someone's here."

It was just a whisper, but it sounded incredibly loud against the thunderous silence.

"Daggereyes, exactly how close was the camp to here?" It was the first time Kimiko had heard fear in Rustfoot's voice.

Daggereyes's hand flew up to her mouth and she bit down on her thumb knuckle.

"Fuck." Rustfoot strode to the door, his body changing as he went. He didn't stop to take his clothes off, so they ripped as his torso and limbs expanded.

"Rustfoot, wait!" Moonskin moved as if to stop him, but then Rustfoot flung the door open and sunbeams flew in. Moonskin fell back as if he'd been stung and shielded his face with his arms. Daggereyes all but threw herself on top of him. Rustfoot ran out, closing the door behind him. The sunbeams vanished. Daggereyes sat up and cradled Moonskin comfortingly in her arms. "Are you alright?"

Moonskin was shaking, his eyes wide with shock. "It's morning."

"Don't worry, you won't get burned if you stay in here. You're safe-"

"Daggereyes, I don't think you understand. It's morning. I can't go outside to help Rustfoot and you know that they'll have silver weapons this time. He'll be killed if not captured first. And who knows where Silvertongue is."

Daggereyes went as pale as Moonskin and she started biting her thumb knuckle again. Moonskin put an arm around her. They sat on the floor holding onto each other for awhile. Then Moonskin rose slowly to his feet, walked over to a shelf, pulled off his violin and bow, tucked the end of the violin beneath his chin, and began to play. Daggereyes took a minute to listen to the sad strange tune, then got up off the floor, went to another shelf, and picked up a small drawstring bag, her knuckle fell from her mouth. She held the pouch in her hand for a moment, squeezing and rubbing it before taking a deep breath and heading for the door. When she reached it, Moonskin's music went off key and ceased. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Daggereyes grasped the door knob and turned to face Moonskin. "Maybe you and Silvertongue can't help Rustfoot, but maybe I can."

Moonskin stared at Daggereyes as if trying to read her blank, pale expression. Then he said in just above a whisper "You are aware that there are much worse things than death."

"Believe me, I haven't forgotten." Daggereyes replied in a dead serious, icy tone.

Moonskin looked at her a few more seconds, then nodded and continued playing. She cracked open the door enough for her to slide out, but careful not to let any sunbeams enter and hit Moonskin. Right before she left, she stuffed her thumb knuckle in her mouth and chomped down on it. Kimiko was almost smirking behind her gag. Yeah, that was _really_ going to intimidate their enemies, whoever they were. But the smirk left her face when she realized that Daggereyes kept biting her thumb because she was scared to death. Heck, why wouldn't she be after what Moonskin had just said. What did he mean by that anyway? 'There are much worse things than death.' And what did she mean by 'I haven't forgotten.' Did these kids go through some kind of dramatic traumatizing event? Was that why they had gone bad?

Kimiko was close to feeling sympathetic when another thought crossed her mind. Daggereyes had said so herself that she couldn't fight. How could Daggereyes help Rustfoot if she couldn't? Kimiko couldn't imagine not being able to fight. Her father had always made sure that she was able to defend herself if faced with a situation where she had to do so. What did Daggereyes do when faced with those kinds of problems? Come to think of it, during their encounter with Daggereyes in their world, aside from her kicking Clay in the crouch Daggereyes didn't exactly fight much. She mostly ran. But this time she wasn't trying to escape danger. She was going to meet it head on. Wasn't evil supposed to be cowardly? Why was Daggereyes risking her life instead of running for it? Could it be that Daggereyes and the other followers weren't that different from herself and the other Xiaolin apprentices? That she was willing to do anything at all to help a friend in need? No, that couldn't be. People or creatures who were evil weren't loyal to anyone but themselves. Take Wuya when she was a ghost. She was like a parasite, going for hosts who were strong and evil, but when those were unavailable, she took what she could get.

A wet, muffled sob snapped Kimiko back to reality. She looked over at Omi, who had started crying again. Kimiko's anger rushed back. She pushed any thoughts of pity or admiration away, furious for having them in the first place. Kimiko didn't care how bad Daggereyes might've had it, she'd hurt Omi, and anyone who'd hurt the most good-hearted kid in the world was on Kimiko's hit list, which was getting longer as this quest went on.

As Kimiko went over the list in her head to be sure that she hadn't missed anyone, Clay was worrying about Omi and Dojo, hoping that they would be okay, and wondering about what it was that Daggereyes could do with her eyes.

Clay's and Kimiko's thoughts were interrupted as they heard shouting and crashing from a distance away from the outside of the caravan. Moonskin heard this as well and slowly walked over to a cabinet and leaned against the side that was facing away from the door, his music never wavering. Kimiko thought that this change of position was made so this time if the door opened the sunlight wouldn't touch him.

Then the noise got louder, like the sources had come closer, and it became easier to distinguish some of the sounds. Sharp teeth gnashing, kicks and punches being thrown, grunts and gasps of pain, commands, advice, or names of attacks being shouted, and a couple times a nauseating wet ripping or cracking sound that always came right before a scream. It was clear that there was a large group of people fighting. One of the many voices shouting stood out from the rest and both Clay and Kimiko felt that they should've known it from somewhere, but something about it made them unable to put their finger on it.

Suddenly a horrific howl filled the air, a howl that held so many painful emotions, it was hard to know what separate feelings it was made up of. The cowboy and girl flinched at the awful noise, wishing Moonskin's music were loud enough to drown it out and were grateful when it died away. Just a moment after it did, the caravan door flew open. Sunlight flooded the room, spilling onto the prisoners and illuminating their savior. If Clay and Kimiko weren't gagged, their jaws would have fallen onto their laps. Omi was still weeping into his hands, but if he saw who had just entered the caravan he would have stopped out of shock. The person in the doorway froze and his skin had gone paler than it already was. He opened his mouth. At first nothing came out, but then he choked out a sentence in a tone that sounded as if he didn't know to be pleased or angry. "My xiaolin apprentices!"


	23. Safe! Or Are They?

Omi stopped crying when he heard this recognizable voice, spread his fingers, peered through them, and gasped. "Master Fung!"

His master hurried to his chair and untied him. As Omi slid down off the chair (it was a little too big for him), Master Fung noticed his blotchy face and wet eyes. "Are you alright? What happened, young monk?"

Omi opened his mouth, closed it, then looked down, suddenly fascinated by the floor. When Omi didn't reply, Master Fung turned to Kimiko and Clay and removed their gags. "What happened here? Did the monsters harm you? Why was Omi crying?"

Kimiko was too busy trying to spit the extra bit of cloth out of her dry mouth to answer and Clay was stunned silent by Master Fung's behavior at the door. He didn't think he had ever seen Master Fung look that scared before. Sure he had freaked out for a second when Omi told him that he lost the Heart of Jong, but he quickly recovered and stayed calm and focused as he tried to resolve the matter. And even then, that was a time for freaking out. But when Master Fung saw them, he looked . . . . Clay wasn't sure how to describe it. Like them being here was worse than ten thousand years of darkness.

Finally Kimiko got the cloth out, moistened her mouth, and started to speak. "Clay and I are okay, but something weird happened to Omi. The girl in the blue jacket-"

Master Fung abruptly placed a finger on her lips to stop her from speaking and looked back at Omi. Omi closed his eyes and shook his head. "It was nothing. I will be alright."

Kimiko slightly tilted her head away from Master Fung's fingers, her eyes wide and disbelieving. "Omi, are you kidding? You were on the floor bawling your eyes out like someone had died. You couldn't even talk."

But Clay remembered that that wasn't entirely true. For a little while Omi kept saying that he didn't mean to do something, but he never said what. As if sharing Clay's thoughts, Omi's face suddenly filled with an emotion that startled Clay even more than Master Fung's panic. But it only stayed for a second and instantly left, leaving his face expressionless and bloodless. Master Fung had turned his attention back to Kimiko and his head was in the way of Kimiko's view of Omi so neither of them saw it. Clay recognized it as one of the many feelings flashing across Omi's face as he was looking at Daggereyes. Shame. It wasn't that Clay had never seen Omi ashamed before. He, Kimiko, and Raimundo had always seen one of his embarrassed sad looks after he had lost a showdown. But this one was different. It was much, much stronger somehow than the other times. What did Omi see when he looked into Daggereyes's eyes? What didn't he mean to do?

Meanwhile as Master Fung untied Kimiko and Clay, he went back into his usual serious, steady state. "What are you doing here? I told you to stay at the temple. Do you have any idea how serious this is?"

Kimiko wasn't listening. She was not going to drop the cause of the state Omi was in after the event with Daggereyes. "Omi, what on earth did she do to make you cry like that? Whatever she did was not 'nothing'. You didn't even so much raise a hand to defend yourself when Moonskin-"

"All of you go outside." Master Fung seemed to have just become aware of the source of the violin music and was looking at Moonskin with intense suspicion. Clay wasn't sure, but he could've sworn that there was a funny glint in his eyes. Clay thought he recognized it from somewhere, but he couldn't recall where.

"But-"

Master Fung silenced her with a glare. "Now. No arguments."

Kimiko glanced at Clay questioningly. He shrugged and started for the door. He stopped when the way was blocked with some of the elder monks. Master Fung said something to them quickly in Chinese. Whatever it was brought Omi's attention away from the floor and he gave Master Fung a startled look. A couple of the elder monks entered the caravan and the rest left, clearing the doorway for the apprentices. Clay went out. Kimiko began to follow him, but stopped halfway and looked back at Omi. "Omi? Are you coming?"

Omi looked at Moonskin, who was still playing, and stared until the elder monks got in front of Moonskin, hiding him from view. Omi's gaze fell back to the floor and he slowly started for the door. Kimiko went to him and grasped his hand. Omi looked up at her, half startled and half relieved. Kimiko gave him a comforting soft smile and lead him out of the caravan. Omi cast one last glance at Moonskin as they stepped out into the sunshine. The door slammed shut behind them.

Then one of the monks pulled a silver cross out of his robes and held it up to Moonskin. Moonskin did not look at it, but his knees buckled, his notes warbled, and he began to shake. The other monk reached for the violin and bow and tried to tug them away, but Moonskin held on. In the tussle the bow wasn't even creating notes anymore as it slid across the strings, it was just making a scratching sound.

Master Fung watched the struggle for a little while then marched over, took the hand that held the cross and pulled it down into Moonskin's face. Surprised by the intrusion and this sudden pain, Moonskin let out a sharp gasp and his grip loosened. When the monk tore the violin from his fingers, Moonskin dropped to the floor as if a body part had been ripped from him.

With the cross still on him, the monks roughly yanked Moonskin to his feet, overturned two large burlap sacks over his head, pulled the mouths down over his torso and arms, then tied the mouths down tightly around his waist. The monk carelessly tossed the violin and bow onto the floor. Moonskin winced at their sounds of impact when they hit. The monk felt through the burlap searching for an arm, gripped it hard when he found one, and yanked Moonskin to his feet. The other monk that had possession of the cross stepped behind Moonskin. The hand holding the cross disappeared back into his robes then reappeared, the silver cross replaced with a wooden stake. The monk pressed the sharpened point of the stake against the young vampire's back. Before going to the door and opening it for his fellow monks and their prisoner, Master Fung leaned near Moonskin's head and spoke sharply "Todo o problema ou resistência e você morrerão. Do you understand?"

"Yes." uttered a weak voice from inside the sack.

I am _so _sorry for taking forever to write this and I'm _really_ sorry for its length. I promise the next one will be much longer and hopefully when Christmas vacation starts, I'll have more time to write. Oh, and thank you all very much for the reviews!

_angel hakusho_: Actually it's kind of the other way around. ; )

_Calistar Heir_: Your feelings and guesses are right on the money.


	24. Weirder Yet

Geez, I started this on Christmas break, got one hell of a writer's block, and didn't finish until the start of spring break! Maybe I should look into getting a partner for Iorek. Or maybe just someone to do my homework for me. Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! I was surprised how many people seem to be rooting for Moonskin. I wonder why that is. smirks Anyway, sorry this took so long, please enjoy!

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As a result of living in darkness for the past few hours or so, the sunlight blinded the warriors at first when they stepped outside. Omi and Clay took a moment or two to get their eyes used to the light. Kimiko, who was anxious and impatient to see what had happened outside, forced her eyes open after a few quick hard blinks. She immediately regretted being in such a hurry. A few feet in front of her, two monks were holding a thick silver hoop around a more than half naked human Rustfoot. He never took the time to take his clothes off before changing into his wolf shape, so being unable to expand like his size, his clothing was ripped to shreds. Most of it was on the ground and a few surviving rags were draped around his chest and stomach. What Moonskin had said earlier in the caravan about there being nothing to see was wrong. It was the first thing that grabbed Kimiko's attention. Her face went redder than Omi's robes. "Ew." She said halfheartedly and threw the arm that wasn't holding Omi's hand over her face, although a part of her couldn't help peeking just a little.

Rustfoot rolled his eyes and tugged down on one of the remaining rags he was wearing until the area Kimiko found offensive was covered. After he did this, Kimiko lowered her arm to study the silver hoop surrounding Rustfoot and the other less disturbing parts of his body. The silver was only about three inches from Rustfoot's torso, which she noticed was covered in wounds that almost looked as if they were sizzling. Kimiko's stomach flipped when she noticed that his face was smeared from the bridge of his nose down in red stuff that looked a lot like blood and his hands and feet were also drenched in it. His hands were curled into fists and were being clenched so hard that they were shaking and the knuckles were white. Rustfoot's face was neutral, but there was something in his eyes that looked frightened, angry and overwhelmed. Kimiko saw this because he was looking right at her. Suddenly the monks both started walking away with the hoop still around Rustfoot and part of it collided into his back. His gaze broke and he gave a quick yelp of startled pain as he jumped away from the silver. His jump was a bit too far and the other side of the hoop just brushed his front. He winced and fell into step with the monks, staring at his feet to be sure his pace was right and to be sure his position was always in the center of the silver.

Kimiko's eyes widened as she watched them walk away. When the hoop came away from Rustfoot's flesh, the areas of skin it touched were gone and the large wounds it left that were similar to the others on the young werewolf's body actually _were_ sizzling. Kimiko remembered there was something werewolves hated about silver and she guessed that she had just witnessed the reason.

When Rustfoot and the monks were probably about half a yard away from her, Kimiko suddenly became aware of her surroundings and sucked in a sharp intake of breath. Omi and Clay finally got their eyes adjusted to the light and they both looked up at the scenery. Omi's grip tightened on Kimiko's hand and Clay put a hand on Kimiko's shoulder and squeezed. Smeared across the forest floor and the sides of some of the tree trunks were broad trails of blood. Lying across some of them were dead or badly wounded monks. The surviving and uninjured monks were either carrying the dead into wooden carts or tending to the wounded.

Sudden movements of blue and red to the far right caught Clay's eye. Daggereyes was struggling fiercely against three monks. One had her arms twisted behind her back, another was kneeling beside her and had her legs wrapped in a tight hug (Clay understood all too well the reason for that), and the last one was standing in front of her trying to pull a burlap sack over her head. But she was flailing so violently, this appeared to be an impossible task with only one set of hands. The other two monks were too occupied in their task of keeping Daggereyes restrained to help. Without really thinking about why, Clay let go of Kimiko and took a few steps toward the tussle. He stopped when he felt something crunch under his foot. He looked down and saw one half of Daggereye's sunglasses sticking out from under his boot. When he lifted it, the broken remains of the other half were revealed. Clay bent to pick the intact half up, thinking that maybe Daggereyes had flung her head so violently that her glasses had come off. When he looked back up at the struggle he noticed that all the monks were looking away from the girl's face, even the one with the sack.

Then the one in front of Daggereyes stuffed the sack under his arm and both of his hands sprang forward, captured her head, and finally immobilized it. While one hand gripped her hair tightly, he withdrew the other, raised it, and slapped her hard across the face. Then quick as a flash, grabbed the bag from under his arm and slid it over her head.

Clay's jaw dropped open. A xiaolin monk had just hit a girl. Sure, she was on the dark side and was as sneaky and underhanded as a cheating poker player and she had a kick like two mules (Clay winced at the memory of his experience at finding that out), but still. What was even worse, they did it while she was defenseless.

The sack seemed to anger Daggereyes even more and she flailed about so much harder that Clay was afraid that she might break her own neck. The monk boxed her left ear and she finally grew still. Then the monk reached into his robes, pulled out some rope, and bound her wrists and ankles while the other monks held her limbs in place. Daggereyes gave a feeble struggle now and then while this took place, as if she knew that anything she did now was useless, but was not entirely willing to give up. Once she was bound, the monk who was more well-built than the other two picked Daggereyes up, tossed her onto his shoulder, and followed the monks that were leading Rustfoot away.

Clay glanced back at his fellow xiaolin apprentices to see if they had witnessed what he had, but they were still taking in the horrible sight of the bloody battlefield. Then Master Fung emerged from the followers' caravan, behind him were the other two monks dragging what looked like an upside-down bag of potatoes with legs. It took Clay a second to realize it was Moonskin. The monks slammed the door behind them, making Omi jump and grab Kimiko's arm with his free hand. He had her in such a death grip, Kimiko felt as though Omi's hand may as well have been a tourniquet. She looked down at the little monk. His eyes were wide with fear and alarm, darting around as if he expected an ambush at any second. He relaxed a bit when he saw that the abrupt noise was just the door, but just a little bit. Kimiko's concern easily turned from the monks on the battlefield back to Omi. This wasn't the fearless optimistic Omi she knew. Kimiko didn't get it. They were with Master Fung and the other monks from the xiaolin temple. They were safe now. "Omi, it's alright. What's the matter?"

Omi opened his mouth like he was going to answer, but nothing came out. He left it open a few more seconds as if to make sure there were no words stuck on his tongue trying to come out. When he closed it, a single tear slipped out of the corner of his eye. Kimiko reached down and gave him a gentle one-armed hug. "It's going to be okay." She said soothingly. "And hey, whenever you're ready to talk about what's bothering you, Clay and I will be here to listen."

Omi said nothing, and due to the fact that his face was over her shoulder, Kimiko didn't see Omi's facial reaction. But Clay did. He didn't hear what Kimiko said to Omi, although he heard her voice and after her comment Omi looked sick with fear and shame.

Omi was touched by Kimiko's concern, but he almost wished she weren't such a good friend. He wished she would focus on her duties and leave him alone. He just couldn't tell her what had happened; her concern would turn into scorn if she knew. As would Clay's if he found out. And what of Master Fung? What would he think if he knew? And Dojo-

That one small word was more than enough to drag Omi out of his self-pity and yank him into the present. He gasped. "Dojo! We forgot about Dojo!"

No sooner were the words out of his mouth when Omi's wish was granted. Kimiko's arm immediately left him and she bolted for the door of the caravan, but even though Clay's starting point was farther away than hers and he wasn't as fast as Kimiko, he somehow beat her to it and was in such a hurry he almost slammed the door on her.

"Dojo?" Kimiko and Clay were not the only ones who reacted to Omi's statement. Master Fung seemed to appear at Omi's side in less than a second. "Dojo is here? Are you sure? Where is he? Young monk, what happened here?"

Perhaps it was the words 'young monk' or the fact that he did not race into the caravan to help his friend once he had remembered him or maybe the fact that Omi had forgotten about Dojo in the first place or possibly even all three. But whatever it was, Omi was overcome by another huge wave of shame and began crying again. He knew that a true xiaolin warrior would make sure that the safety of others was assured before dwelling on his own emotions and mistakes.

"Omi?" Master Fung kneeled down, grasped Omi's shoulders, and gently shook him. Omi took a deep breath. Now was the time to act like a true warrior.

Except the door slammed again. Clay strode straight to Master Fung, struggling to untie the mouth of the sack Raimundo stuffed Dojo in. Kimiko was so close behind him, that she was stepping on his heels. Finally Clay managed to get the knot loose and pulled the sack open. Kimiko noticed that once he did, the bottom of the sack became soaked and started to drip.

"Dojo, it's okay, it's us!" She cried out to sooth him.

"Yeah, little buddy, you're alright, we're here now. Hey, and so is Master Fung!" Clay added.

At this, Dojo's head sprang from the sack like a jack-in-the-box and spun in all directions to see what had happened before it stopped at the old man. He and Master Fung locked eyes for a moment.

"What news do you bring, Dojo?" Master Fung asked with grave calm.

Dojo looked close to tears. "Tons, and none of it's good."


End file.
